According to research… people do believe in soulmates.

“I think I found my soulmate.”

Soulmate = a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, comfort, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, or compatibility and trust.

This is the definition Wikipedia gives, but a random person on the street would say “it’s the person you’re supposed to marry” or “it’s the one that is meant for you” and it truly is. It is true that a soulmate is someone you connected at another level, but at the same time, it is thought to be the one that is destined to you.

Why do people believe in soulmates? I don’t know the answer on this one, but I know why I believe it. It makes everything bearable. Every heartbreak you’ve been through has a purpose, every man that wasn’t there for me has a reason and everytime you walked away has a meaning. It is more like blaming someone else or something else. “It didn’t work out in the end? It was probably because he wasn’t your soulmate”, “You, guys, broke up? Don’t worry, you’ll find the one that is meant to you soon enough.” These are just a couple out of all the things I’ve heard during my twenty years of living; and it did make things easier to bare.

What I really love about this is that I’m not the only one that wants this type of excuse. In the U.S.A. 73% of the population believe in soulmates and what makes this even more curious is that more men than women believe that they have someone waiting for them in the world (74% males, 71% females). It is hard to believe that, considering the fact that women are more for the classic love stories. Also, what surprised me was that 79% of people younger than 45 believe, while only 69% of those over 45 do, because again, you would think that the older people have been with someone for almost their whole life; I would think I’m married to my soulmate if I would be with them for 20 years.

There are so many things out there about soulmates; all you have to do is look. I googled one day and found theory, books, music and even stories. I read one about people being born with the first words their soulmate was going to say to them and I loved the idea. I also tried to see if I can get some clues about my soulmate, but everything online is just bullshit that you have to pay for; they never turn out as being real.

I started being interested in soulmates some years ago. I mean, I always thought there is someone out there made especially for me, but I heard this story from one of my teachers two years ago. It was about her and her soulmate. She felt it was him. She was having dreams about them living in another era, but still being together. It all looked so special and deep for me so that’s when I started my research.

I borrowed all the books I could find and read a lot of articles online and I was amazed. Some books say that there are four types out there, others talk about five and others about seven. Types such as the friend soulmate, teacher soulmate, companion soulmate, karmic soulmate, twin soul/twin flame are just some of all the types that can be found online or in books. When I think about it, doesn’t really seem a weird thing that there are so many types or that some of them are in books and some aren’t because, after all, it is not a fact. It cannot be demonstrated yet (although I heard about the scientist Duncan MacDougall who had a scientific study that was published in 1907, proving that the soul has a physical weight which is 21.3 grams, but that doesn’t prove that our souls do have another soul that is meant to be theirs).

The ones that I can say I found are the teacher and the friend soulmates; I thought at some point that I found the twin soul (or “divine love” as they are called on other websites), but it turned out I was lying myself. I mean for these ones I can say they exist because I met mine; and for the teacher one (they are people that teach you in order to help you achieve an important goal in your life) I can guarantee.

In the end, I think everybody has met a soulmate at some point; it could’ve been a friend, a teacher or even their twin soul. If you did and lost it, don’t feel sorry. Soulmates don’t always get to end up together in every life because sometimes we have lessons to learn on our own and they would just be in the way.

With thanks to Ellena Restrick