Of sole mate and soulmates

This post has been overdue for a while now. And today, I am ready to write it. I first started thinking about this a few weeks ago when one of my friends asked a question. A question asked casually over a casual dinner, but one that left a deep impression on my thoughts in the days to come.

“What do you do when you are with someone, and one fine day, you run into your soulmate?”

Her question sucked the breath out of me. The question was so real, so 'out-there', screaming for attention, that it scared me.

What would you do? How would you know? And if you did, what would you do? Would you stick to what you have, because it is familiar and it is real, and let your soulmate -- the one you're meant to be with -- walk away? Or will you follow your instinct and leave everything you have worked so far for, and be with your soulmate? It's a wicked question, and it was enough to give me a couple of sleepless nights.

I set out to follow the trail and see where it took me. First things first -- what does the word 'soulmate' mean?

Dictionary.com : "One of two persons compatible with each other in disposition, point of view, or sensitivity".

M-w : "A person temperamentally suited to another"

The definitions sounded too clinical to me. So I tried to find out how people whom I know defined it. And here are some of the answers I got.

"A soulmate is the person with whom you can share your feelings, emotions, perspectives, opinions, joys, sorrows and even your silence."

"A soulmate is the person you can see yourself with when you are 80."

"A soulmate is the person you are meant to be with -- a person who was created only for you."

"A soulmate is someone you will be together with. Forever."

"A soulmate is one you have a natural connection with. You tune into each other effortlessly, relate with each other on lots of things. you differ in your thoughts and opinions of course, but you always understand the other."

I discovered that while most of the people I spoke to had defined the word, none of them claimed to have met their soulmates. Some even claim that they know -- that the people they are with are not their soulmates. Is it true then? That perhaps our busy lives have a place for the definition, but not for the person it defines? Is the soulmate a myth created by hopeless romantics?

Or is it that our soulmate is out there, waiting to appear, watching our every move, waiting for us to find him or her? How real are these people? And how real is the fear that our soulmates will simply walk up to us one day, and we will just know that it's them? And they will disrupt the life that we had so painstakingly created without them?

Long ago, I watched a movie where the lead character had a theory -- "God has made everyone in pairs -- as soulmates. It will take time, but you will find your soulmate in the end.”

But then I thought – what is "the end" really? And when does it happen? When do you know that you've reached "the end", and that you have found your soulmate? When do you stop looking? Do you ever stop looking?

"It’s not over till someone says, 'I do'." Says Rachel in Friends, when she decides to go tell Ross that she loves him, just before he’s about to marry Emily. Could saying "I do" be "the end" when you know you have met your soulmate and you are going to be together forever? Surely not. If that was true, there would be no divorces in the world.

So when do you know? One of my close friends asked an interesting question last night, "Is a soulmate a 'sole mate'? Does it have to be one person?" The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to believe that there are probably many of them out there. And that it's probably not wrong to have many soulmates.

Is it not possible for us to love not one, but many? Do we not connect with different people on different levels? Do we not feel deeply for many people whom we don't or can't "end up with"? If a soulmate is someone you completely connect with, someone who understands all your unfinished sentences, does there have to be a "the end"? Do we really have one and only one soulmate whom we "end up" with?

Are we not capable of loving without "the end"?

And if so, just how many people are we willing to allow ourselves to love?