Searching for your soulmate?
Everything romcoms taught me about love, where you should work from when WeWork is too depressing, and THE bag you need to buy
I finally finished One Day and my eyes are still puffy from crying. Even though I read the book, watched the Anne Hathaway movie version, and knew exactly what was coming, I still spent 6 hours howling in agony, as I watched in excruciating detail how two people can fuck up their lives so much, and how tragically beautiful love really is.
In between my crying, I asked you what YOU thought of love, and 1000+ people responded to my survey. The results are both depressing and hopeful.
Soulmates don’t exist. Despite every romcom plot being two people who defy the odds because they absolutely NEED to end up together, most of us are super realistic that we don’t have just one soulmate. The idea that you have one person only meant for you puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on (1) the search for that person (2) everything needing to be perfect with that person (3) the stakes of what happens when it doesn’t work out with them and (4) an unhealthy obsession with the one that we think got away. (Crystals don’t work people!) We change so much over the course of our lifetimes so it’s impossible that one person can be right for us at every stage. Choosing a partner is a CHOICE, not divine providence - you decide if someone meets your criteria, and is someone you want to go through the ups and downs of life with (and then you keep choosing them. every single day)
Timing is everything/nothing. It’s easy to blame timing as the reason you and your prom date didn’t end up together (mine was bc he was gay) but timing is another way of saying that we prioritized something else over that person. You decided a job, grad school, a new city, your faith was more important than that person - and it’s ok. Because #1 holds so true - you will have many great loves in your life time, the important thing is to stay true to the version of yourself that you are trying to be.
We’re all still thinking about our exes.