Soul Mates or 'The One' | INFJ Forum

Soul Mates or 'The One'

DonTaushMe

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Dec 25, 2013
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I need this shit explained to me. If you, or someone you know, believes in a singular/few person(s) who was put on this earth that is your ‘One’ I would really like to know what happened in your upbringing that has instilled this belief in you. Cause I just can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.

I am the youngest of 6 kids and the closest one two me in the line of six is 6 years apart from me. My parents were fairly old when they had me, mom was 37 I believe, and my father was at work more often than not. The way I knew they loved me is they bought me shit. Being an angst teen with problems they bought me more shit. Thus my ideal of ‘love’ was someone who would save me, marry me, work all day and buy me more shit. So I know where my issues of love stem from, I understand my ignorant beliefs vs reality and I now know what the reality is.
Coming from my background I have no fucking idea what it is to believe I have one, or a few ‘soul mates’ that are near to perfect matches for me. I don’t know what it is to think that waiting for them is a good idea. I don’t know what it is to think that saving myself for someone else will make me happy, because it wont. Sexual depravity just makes me very angry.

So please, please, please, tell me: What in your life happened to make you believe in soul mates.

I wont make fun of you for your thought process. I just seriously want to know.
 
Briefly I do not know that I ever believed in it but there was a time I wanted it. I suppose I still do in some ways. So I believe it is the want of it that makes it a real possibility for some.
Through the years though this is what I have come to understand. Everything is in a state of constant flux. At the age of 25 you cant under what it will be like to be 40. Your mind (in most people's instances) becomes more full of things you simply did not know before.
So while you may search for and even find that person you believe "completes" you. The idea that you will feel the same about them after 100 years or less time is fairly off base I think.
More to the point...people change.
 
I grew up in a family with 4 children. I'm the 2nd eldest child, so you can kind of see it as me having the middle child syndrome. I always vied for love and affection - or just, you know, approval from my parents, but they were always tending to my older brother, or caring for my younger sisters. My brother is smart, and my family has the traditional thinking that the eldest son's achievements are more important than any other child, but the younger children should be loved and taken care of because they are young. I was always competing with my brother and sisters.

This left me pretty distant with my parents. Like I've said, I've worked hard - I wasn't smart, but I did my best to please them. I took more AP classes, won more awards than any sibling, but it wasn't enough. I was bad at math - I almost failed a grade, and my father would ridicule me, I would get sick easily and my parents would think I was lying, and I didn't do anything wrong - never had, but it was always me who got in trouble for being bad at something or doing something my parents thought was useless.


My dad, if you can tell, is a very opinionated, blunt, and stoic man. The only time he shows emotion is when you tell him he hurt you - which is pretty hypocritical of him. Anyway, my dad lived in a culture that kind of laughed at the weak. What I mean is, if you were weak - you weren't going to have a successful life... So, my dad and mom believed in "hard love."

If you want to know what kind of affection my dad showed me, it was probably holding my hand during mass or joking. We actually live under the same roof, but we've never spoken for more than 5 minutes a day. He's an extreme introvert, and I grew scared of him because all he did was make me feel like I would never surmount to anything. You know, that kind of feeling? When you don't talk a lot, and the only thing that he says are insults? It makes you feel really bad... Really useless.


When I wasn't feeling useless at home, I felt useless at school.
Because my dad was opinionated and vocal and mean... I didn't like voicing my opinions because I felt useless and uneducated. I prefer to be quiet. This has led me to numerous trouble - a lot of people thought I was stupid and would joke about me behind my back, or in front of me. I was bad at math too, and I'm Asian, so I got bullied a lot for that - and the other Asians would wonder why an Asian was bad at math.

So, I never felt comfortable anywhere.

I think the reason why I believe in a soul mate is because of just that. I never felt comfortable with anyone, not even my family, so I really like the idea that there is actually someone who understands me in all accounts, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Sometimes the idea of soul mates worries me, though, because I think I probably don't have one. The amount of social disappointments I have had are numerous, and I'm honestly afraid to expose myself because of how I have been treated in the past. Of course, I'm trying to change myself, but...it's hard.
 
i personally never believed in the notion of "the one" - yes sometimes we meet individuals or partners that invoke a very strong trigger of feelings within us but that is for the purpose of self love and understanding love; not necessarily that we are "saved" or 'fulfilling a missing part".

disney movies did a good job of filling the mindset of "being saved", "knight in shining armor", "all your problems will be solved if you just find that "prince"", "the princess mentality", "being chosen", etc - classic female brainwashing that relies on externalizing the need for a mate to a whole another level. romantic idealism that is inherent in most young girls are prime targets - coupled with lack of good role models via parents relationships, lack of values from father figures, the social stigma of needing to be "in love" - but most importantly the biological aspect of mating with the most "alpha" mate for the strongest offspring - which creates competition and self esteem issues among women, the list can go on and on what contributes to this "soul mate" mentality.

there are soul mates - but they are not defined in the same way society defines it. soul mates in the most general sense are guides and helping hands in our journey to self actualize. sometimes the soul mate teaches us a painful lesson and sometimes they can give us the most beautiful love story. from it all - the true definition and understanding of "love" is given as a gift. this gift must be nurtured and cared for and not squandered or abused. ultimately soul mate helps you to "give love" and "receive love" - the most fundamental skill that is missing from pretty much most humans currently residing on earth.
 
Society in general, or at least American society as I cannot speak for others, seems to instill the belief of both into people. I have no idea where the roots come from but I see it existing when I look around. A lot of problems I think come from these two idea's when applied in the wrong ways..."If we are soul mates and you are the one then why are things not always perfect? Its because we must not be soul mates." That is dangerous thinking.

I believe in both, but in different ways.

The idea that there is one person out there that is perfect is what I disagree with. I believe that there is one or more person out there that is amazing and we would be amazing together. There is no pre-determination, there is no exclusivity, there is just a well above average compatibility in so much that any differences and difficulties in the relationship are conquerable. Because I believe in it this way, I am able to believe in it in general and be happy. If I tried to hold out for the singular one soul mate that exists somewhere in this world of 7.15 billion people, of course assuming that this one person was born at roughly the same time and is alive at the same time as me, probability says I am screwed...

Instead, I choose to find the above average to amazing compatibility with some one and then work on making the perfect relationship out of it. At that point, they truly are The One and my Soul Mate.
 
I need this shit explained to me. If you, or someone you know, believes in a singular/few person(s) who was put on this earth that is your ‘One’ I would really like to know what happened in your upbringing that has instilled this belief in you. Cause I just can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.

So please, please, please, tell me: What in your life happened to make you believe in soul mates.

I wont make fun of you for your thought process. I just seriously want to know.

Hello.. :)

I believe in soul mates or "The One" or someone who is predestined to be with me and strong proof is that until now I never had a bf because it's like I am saving myself for him.
I want him to be my first and the last. Anyway, I think it's because I grew up watching Disney movies and Barbie movies too. I empathized so much with the Protagonist and seriously took the lessons to my heart. Even wrote the lines in a special notebook only devoted for it. But this really isn't a surprise because believe it or not.. there are a lot of me (believes in soul mates) around here where I am living esp. with my close group of friends. We are brought up in a traditional culture who believes about true love.. it's like since childhood that is what our parents/elders told us.. maybe not directly but through influences especially our medias (movies, tv shows) too. We have a conservative culture and until now we don't even have a divorce. So it is kinda ingrained to us that if we marry it will be for a lifetime.. thus the term "soul mate" or "The One" is abused here especially that we are in a province. Even though I have a cheating father and I can see that my mother is miserable in her marriage.. sometimes it discourages me if there is really a "soul mate" but I would hear my mother telling me that.. it doesn't mean if she had a bad fate; it will happen to me too. So I have to keep my hopes up and keep the faith that I will have my own happy ending. So I think its my environment and also my upbringing. My wild imagination also contributed a lot too and me being an idealist. I feel that he is just out there somewhere and time will come that we will find each other. That maybe we will recognize each other instantly like you know such thing we call as "love at first sight" but if not we will just know that we are meant to be (at some point or you just feel it).

It sounds crazy but that is just my mindset.. when I feel so impatient about waiting my close friend would tell me (the idea came from her) that "maybe it isn't just your time YET" that "you just have to wait patiently because God is still writing your story" or she would tell me that maybe it's gonna be like a "one shot survey design" means that.. when it will happen to me finally, then it will only strike once yet it will be forever.. so maybe that is why God is making you wait so long. Also common statements around here is "your soul mate is worth the wait" "be patient in love.. you don't look for love.. it finds you." or if someone just had a break up people here would say.. "maybe you're just not meant to be" or "if you're really meant to be together.. then you will be someday." What's meant to be will always happen. One big factor too is because we have a religious inculturation. It's like our religion and culture is one.. so it's like about that "Creation of Adam and Eve" that every man has their "missing rib".

In my case.. waiting sometimes makes me really impatient but still I am an optimist so I just keep telling myself funny stuff like "maybe he is in the another side of the world looking for me" so I just have to be patient to inspire myself. Mostly I feel down and discouraged because the world kinda values less "true love" right now. But that is just my "idealist self" speaking and I need to grasp the "realistic" side about soul mates. To find balance between the two and that the term "soul mate" really refers not just to "the one" but to a few or possibly many who can successfully connect with you mentally, emotionally and physically as well as having that feeling that you want "to take care of each other" as two flawed yet perfectly imperfect individuals who love each other by choice although ignited (or maybe not) by sparks or fireworks.


And uhh.. I need to add, soul mate also means for us as that person you meant "to love and be loved" and as well as in my case "soul mate" also refers to "you are predestined to be with" but that is kinda deep since I connect it with reincarnation thingie and that's sounds more crazy so let's not touch that haha. Hope I was able to share my perspective effectively.
 
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My dad died when I was a teenager and my mom did the same to me, she clocked out of the family and would use shopping trips, and gifts as ways to show her love when she bothered showing her face at home, or after yelling at us (her three kids) for a reason she pulled out her ass. This ended up making me feel the same as you and thus I choose a partner whom had the same characteristics as her. It was like I was drawn to him because he constantly made me feel like I needed him and he used gifts and lies as a replacement of real love. I knew he was sucking the energy out of me and I believed that the only reason I would actually stick around for his shit was because he HAD to be my soulmate and God was conforming my belief system around him. I've had what I thought to be two soulmate a in my life, but honestly at 22 what I want and how I do things have constantly changed and I realized that your soulmate only dictates what you have experienced and want out of life, your soulmate is a direct reflection of yourself so the better you want for ur self the better your outcome will be of finding someone who's a match or soulmate .
 
I think it's less an issue that the idea exists than people's understanding of what it means to have a soulmate and what they expect of the person who they believe is one. You can have a soulmate, and not get along with them all the time. You can have a soulmate and not be able to sustain a relationship with them. One thing that's consistent about the soulmate is not that they are perfect, but that they are the one who you feel or connect with in a particular way that you can't with anyone else, even if you met others later on.

You don't call a soulmate into being or dream them into existence, or imagine them into being. I think it's just once in a lifetime experience with someone that's a little different than most. This doesn't mean you can't have great experiences with other partners, but maybe this person is just unique. It's not something you can foretell or decide ahead of time. It just happens. Belief has nothing to do with it. You may not believe in something, yet it still happens or turns out to be true.

Everyone is different, wants different things, is affected by different things, and feel differently. Assuming something can't be real just because it's not realistic or doesn't happen the way you want is like telling yourself or someone else that love doesn't exist because it didn't happen the way you wanted it to. I think when people put conditions or expiration dates on things, it sometimes diminishes the ability to recognize or respond to an experience. It becomes too much about looking for someone to be or behave exactly as we want.

Also, I am not sure why it's such a problem to believe in the idea of soulmate, simply because others don't. Everyone doesn't have to believe in it. If you do, you do. If you don't, then you don't. Why must something be wrong with the person who does believe? It's like saying, simply because you don't believe in God or believe God is a myth, that somehow I shouldn't believe in God either. Your faith and mine are two different things. We don't have to believe the same things. Simply because someone else doesn't believe in it, doesn't make someone else's right or desire to believe any less justified or logical.

Each belief has it's only flaws or consequences.

Lately, I realize it makes more sense to believe or at least strive to imagine a good life with one person, potential soulmate, than believing that just about anyone out there will be a great fit. Based on what I've seen of people everyday, it's likely more ridiculous for me to believe that I can make it work with anyone than believe there are just a few who will make a good match. It's much harder to find compatibility today than it was in the past, because people today are focused on having choices, not being tied down or committed. Most of my experiences reinforce the idea that most people aren't compatible unless they have more than a few things in common.

People are focused on themselves, putting themselves first, asserting independence and freedom, and maintaining reputation, etc. My idea of a soulmate is someone you wouldn't have to work hard to impress or be noticed. But our world today is about visibility. We are too superficial to notice real things much of the time. We don't appreciate people anymore. We see them more as a means to an end, or as ways to achieve success or happiness. We don't have the right qualities or values including valuing the person, not what simply valuing people for what they can do for you or how they make you feel, so of course, even if your soulmate is right in front you, you may not realize it, because you're socially preconditioned to deny or disregard anything which contradicts what you want or feel you should be looking for.

I don't think soulmates are always about wish fulfillment. Maybe they're there to teach you a lesson about true love, beyond what you believe it to be. Maybe it's not about getting a perfect package with everything you want, but learning how to love someone beyond what you thought was possible. Personally, I think a soulmate may simply be someone who you bond with for life, as friend or otherwise. That feeling you have for them just never goes away. There is a sense of understanding and freedom in who you are with them, that's emotional or spiritual, that goes beyond the physical. Again, it's not something you can decide ahead of time. It's not supposed to be, so belief has nothing to do with it. And it's not about meeting the person who fulfills all your dreams. It may simply be that the feeling between you is unique.

In the end, I don't think soulmates are about meeting someone who is everything you ever wanted or who is the only person who could possibly make you happy, or who will fulfill all your needs. I think it's more varied an experience that anyone gives it credit. It doesn't have to be explosive or sexual, etc. It can simple be a quiet love, which feeds you in ways others have not. I think where the idea falls apart or falls short is when people place too many ideals or expectations on it. I don't think going out there searching for a "soulmate" is likely to make anyone find it. It's probably less like to happen if you hunt it down. If it does happen from what I've heard or observed, it tends to occur when people are not looking or paying attention. It just happens.
 
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I need this shit explained to me. If you, or someone you know, believes in a singular/few person(s) who was put on this earth that is your ‘One’ I would really like to know what happened in your upbringing that has instilled this belief in you...

It wasn't my upbringing, it was dating reality and one bad marriage that made me realize there was only one person who could work out for me. I knew it when I met him, just knew. If I hadn't been so lucky to meet him, I would be fine being single.
 
What in your life happened to make you believe in soul mates.

I met [MENTION=5511]ruji[/MENTION]. He called me a racist, I told him to go fuck himself.

It was magic.
 
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I grew up in a family with 4 children. I'm the 2nd eldest child, so you can kind of see it as me having the middle child syndrome. I always vied for love and affection - or just, you know, approval from my parents, but they were always tending to my older brother, or caring for my younger sisters. My brother is smart, and my family has the traditional thinking that the eldest son's achievements are more important than any other child, but the younger children should be loved and taken care of because they are young. I was always competing with my brother and sisters.

This left me pretty distant with my parents. Like I've said, I've worked hard - I wasn't smart, but I did my best to please them. I took more AP classes, won more awards than any sibling, but it wasn't enough. I was bad at math - I almost failed a grade, and my father would ridicule me, I would get sick easily and my parents would think I was lying, and I didn't do anything wrong - never had, but it was always me who got in trouble for being bad at something or doing something my parents thought was useless.


My dad, if you can tell, is a very opinionated, blunt, and stoic man. The only time he shows emotion is when you tell him he hurt you - which is pretty hypocritical of him. Anyway, my dad lived in a culture that kind of laughed at the weak. What I mean is, if you were weak - you weren't going to have a successful life... So, my dad and mom believed in "hard love."

If you want to know what kind of affection my dad showed me, it was probably holding my hand during mass or joking. We actually live under the same roof, but we've never spoken for more than 5 minutes a day. He's an extreme introvert, and I grew scared of him because all he did was make me feel like I would never surmount to anything. You know, that kind of feeling? When you don't talk a lot, and the only thing that he says are insults? It makes you feel really bad... Really useless.


When I wasn't feeling useless at home, I felt useless at school.
Because my dad was opinionated and vocal and mean... I didn't like voicing my opinions because I felt useless and uneducated. I prefer to be quiet. This has led me to numerous trouble - a lot of people thought I was stupid and would joke about me behind my back, or in front of me. I was bad at math too, and I'm Asian, so I got bullied a lot for that - and the other Asians would wonder why an Asian was bad at math.

So, I never felt comfortable anywhere.

I think the reason why I believe in a soul mate is because of just that. I never felt comfortable with anyone, not even my family, so I really like the idea that there is actually someone who understands me in all accounts, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Sometimes the idea of soul mates worries me, though, because I think I probably don't have one. The amount of social disappointments I have had are numerous, and I'm honestly afraid to expose myself because of how I have been treated in the past. Of course, I'm trying to change myself, but...it's hard.

This is exactly how I feel. Wtf? You're Asian-N.American? What city??
 
Logically, there are tons of people you could make it work extremely well with in the world. But during your lifetime, it's likely that you will only have enough time to find one or two of them out of this pool of people, people that will really, really stand out. Life is busy and there are many things to distract yourself with, like your own survival and those of your already existing loved ones for instance. Therefore soulmate can exist as a concept that is real from a personal and subjective perspective, in the context of one lifetime of one individual. It's a question of perspective, really. Some people may meet multiple top-notch matches and some may never get into a relationship with theirs only to lust after a distant person put on a pedestal indefinitely.
 
I STILLLLL BELIEVEEEEEEE SOMEEEEDAYYY YOU AND MEEEEEE.... WILL FIND OURSELVESSS... IN LOVE AGAINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN~~~~

[video=youtube;OAZG2duVte4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAZG2duVte4[/video]

^ TRU LOVE NEVA DIES~
 
I STILLLLL BELIEVEEEEEEE SOMEEEEDAYYY YOU AND MEEEEEE.... WILL FIND OURSELVESSS... IN LOVE AGAINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN~~~~

[video=youtube;OAZG2duVte4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAZG2duVte4[/video]

^ TRU LOVE NEVA DIES~

WE WILL BE TOGETHA, ONE SWEEET DAYYY ~

[video=youtube_share;UXxRyNvTPr8]http://youtu.be/UXxRyNvTPr8[/video]
 
i used to, but i dont anymore. but i do believe that you can meet people who are a match for you at a very high level. ive met one or two such people in my life before, but the circumstances were wrong. obviously if you dont believe in monogamy, or in looking for someone who fulfills your sexual, intellectual, and emotional needs in one package, youre probably not going to meet such a person. if having regular sex is more important to you than that, why would you connect with such a person? you believe in different things, youre incompatible, they would probably just annoy you. although i am a sexual person, actually getting sex is not that important to me, my beliefs of meeting a great match and building a connection between us and a future together are more important to me. if i dont meet such a person i am happy to be celibate, because my beliefs are important to me. i would rather not do things that conflict with my beliefs. i dont know why i came to be this way though.
 
a high quality monogamous relationship is definitely not all i want from life. the mentality that someone is going to bring meaning to your life is all wrong. the best you can hope for in terms of utility is that they will provide an excellent support function to your sense of meaningful direction. but a high quality relationship alone is not sufficient to sustain meaning in life, no, and its too much to expect of another person that they will be able to provide you with that sense of meaning. they have their own life work to worry about. i think that way way way more important to life satisfaction is a sense of personal vocation. getting a highly meaningful relationship, for any length of time, would just be a wonderful bonus, a pleasant consolation, the icing on the cake.
 
There are two people that literally changed the course of my life, both because I thought they might be the 'one'. I don't know what it all means and if they were both in some ways soul mates but they certainly seemed to have been sent to drive me in a certain direction that I needed to take. They both changed me. I am grateful to have met both of them. They helped me find myself. I may still end up with one of them, we'll see.