Probably due to the dating app, I’ve been thinking a lot today about love and the idea of soul mates. Fate, destiny, etc. Thought I might just free write some of my thoughts and feelings on this.

I think love is a choice more than anything else. I also do not believe in soul mates or “the one”.

These are facts about my beliefs. But at the same time, I dream of love at first sight and the romance of fated soul mates. There is nothing more romantic, in my mind, than the return of a long-lost love with a profession of love. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” The words that reward the decades long quiet and steady love.

It’s Penelope &Colin (The Bridgertons), Buttercup &Wesley (The Princess Bride), Anne & Gilbert (Anne of Green Gables), Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy (Pride & Prejudice).

I’m going to blame L.M. Montgomery for this. She’s the author of Anne of Green Gables, which was the first of these stories that I fell in love with. I identified with Anne. She was imaginative, talkative, a redhead, misunderstood, a dreamer. All of the things that I was on the inside. All of the things I still am on the inside. She met this boy when she was young who was smart, handsome, and she loved to hate him and hated to love him. They never dated and eventually went their own way. Anne almost married someone and so did Gilbert. But eventually, they ended up together.

It’s my most favourite love story. Anyway, I don’t actually blame L.M. Montgomery. It’s a common romantic narrative trope. I listed a few other couples written within this trope above. There are many, many more.

This trope is the place where I escape to. I have spent so many hours of my life day dreaming about this scenario. It’s allowed me to chase unavailable people. It seems like the perfect reason to invest 2 years in a relationship with a person who had a partner. Yes, I did that. I’m not proud of it. It is just a fact in my life. One day he would choose me. That’s what I clung to.

And that pattern of chasing someone unavailable and then thinking “if I can just hold on or can convince them” was repeated over and over and over again. This is the pattern that I need to break and am working hard to do so. This is why my next partner has to choose me. I can’t sit around and try to logically reason with them and I can’t accept any sort of unbalanced relationship. I even tried to convince my ex-husband to not cheat on me again.

It seems counter-intuitive, even to me, that love would be a choice when I have evidence that I’ve not been chosen. I have plenty of examples of being the logical choice but then wasn’t chosen. So there must be a different factor, right? I even had a person I had a massive crush on tell me that love doesn’t work by logic (I’m paraphrasing). I don’t agree because I’ve chosen to love everyone that I’ve loved. Except for one person – my first ever crush. I could argue that you can’t love at 10, just be infatuated with. But other than that, they’ve all been choices. Maybe I’m broken?

That sounds so incredibly Spock of me. Logic over feelings. I am a robot! Like WTF me?! Ha ha ha ha ha. I’ve completed my therapy and so I know I’m worthy of being loved and that someone might choose me someday and it’s okay if they don’t. I’ll have the things that I want regardless.

As for why I don’t believe in soul mates. Well, the scene from the Matrix where Trinity says “The Oracle told me that I would fall in love and that that man…the man that I loved would be The One” comes to mind. But unlike Trinity, my “one” is not known to me. I think it’s more likely that there are either a few people who fill the role of “the one” and you choose from them. Or that the concept of “the one” doesn’t exist at all. So I lean more towards the idea that there isn’t a one person for everyone. Some people find them, but not everyone does.

I have a friend who believes in soul mates. He said that he doesn’t care if his soul mate is out there, he’s not interested in being with anyone else. His marriage ended in a way that didn’t really allow for him to have the closure he needed. I find his idea more sad than mine. Because to believe like he does, my soul mate could be out there actively choosing to not be with me. That feels way more sad than my soul mate not existing at all.

I wonder where others stand on this. Is love a choice? Is there such a thing as soul mates or “the one”?