Is there such a thing as one true love?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Lately I have been thinking a lot about love, and if there is only one person who is the right one. If it is so, I find it rather depressing. However, after a lot of thought I realized that it is virtually impossible to live if there is only one perfect match.

Reason number one: the odds are way off. How can two people out of I don’t know how many billion find eachother? Since most people do find their love, I’m assuming that in general the happy couple don’t live to far apart to begin with. This is odd. What are the odds of that happening on a regular basis?

Reason number two: if it is so that kindred spirits live near eachother, why the hell do some people meet thousands of miles away from home? That shouldn’t happen either.

Reason number three: I am thinking about all the famous couples here. Imagine the scenario. Born - kindred spirit number one and two. Both grow up to be mega famous, really rich and superstunning. Then they meet and fall in love. I just don’t buy it! There is no way in hell anyone could convince me that it is just a coincidence. These two lovebirds were meant to be since day one, and they just happen to have all those things in common? No way.

Reason number four: you do find your true love, and then (God forbid) your true love dies. It was the love of your life, it was your soulmate, now he or she is gone forever. But then, when the time is right, all of a sudden you meet someone else, someone truly fantastic and love happens once again. Was your first love not right? Oh, yes. Is your second love not right? Yes again. So are there two true loves? I say no.

The only thing I can conclude here is that love happens, not because it was meant to happen, but because you make it happen. I find that very comforting. I will not wait for love to find me, I will find it myself. I feel so much better now.

(Note to moderator - I don’t know if this is MPSIMS, or maybe the beginning of a Great Debate. Feel free to move it if necessary.)

2

I can agree with your conclusion to a point. Love happens because you make it happen. I know I have found love, because I have paid attention to the people I interact with. The women I do meet and enjoy I get to know better. Is great, I have learned much about myself. The women I have fallen in love with have all been different in many ways. The things I found in common with all of them were, intellegence, humor, compassion, and eyes that sparkle causing the “medusa” effect.
Here is where I disagree with you. Once, finding someone I enjoy on many levels (see things in common list above) and trust develops I am more than happy to give my heart soul to. So, in effect thy are the “one.” Right now there is one woman in particular I am amazed with, smart, pretty, honest, caring, eyes that make me turn to jello :slight_smile: Our relationship has stalled in a very close freindship as of current. Many nights I have considered moving to her city if we continue to grow closer. So, in effect, I have meet “the one woman” 3 different times in 3 different women.
Due to circumstances beyond my control it never came to be. Yet, if things had gone different I could have ended up spending the rest of my life with them and happy.
I do not believe I only have half a soul, and am destined to look for “my other half.” I believe, I have a complete soul, yet only share half of it with the world. When I find someone I can share everything and be complete.

Osip

3

huh… where did all THAT typing come from?
Osip

4

NO.

5

I met her 4000 miles from home, We were married Dec 23 1963
and we’re still as happy as fleas on a dog.

It can and does happen every day

6

soda, I’ve given this a lot of thought, as a romantic. It seems rather ridiculous that the one person for me is living in my area, and I’ll happen to meet the future Mrs. Montfort by chance one day. It’s comforting to believe that, but I find the Invisible Pink Unicorn’s impending visit to my place to hang out more plausible than that.

So, I have to look for it. That’s why I’m always open to meeting women any way I can, and more often than not that’s been on-line (but none from the SDMB … yet). For all I know, Mrs. Montfort is a peasant in Vietnam, or a fashion model in Paris, an executive in South Africa, or a student in Sweden. :slight_smile: I don’t know. I want her to find me already, dammit, though.

My friends always say I’ll meet her when I’m not looking, but I can’t take that chance – I have to look. So, I’m looking, but I’m trying not to look. Does that make sense?

As for your reason #4, that’s one I think about a lot. I wrote a short story about it once, and not surprising, it’s my favourite one.

In short, this is something I spend too much time thinking about. I just want to meet her already and move on to thinking about more important things, like what’s up with all of the Toynbee signs all over town. :slight_smile:

7

I hope it’s not just one. Because if it is, then I’ve already been dumped by mine. :slight_smile:

8

I think everyone has a soulmate.

Who wants to look for love? I hate when people say, “we just ended up together!” I don’t want to end up or settle for anyone. I want to fall head over heels for the person that will complete me, understand me, love me, and make me happy.

Although right now, until I meet that person, I am willing to settle for someone who makes me happy.

9

I heard once that love isn’t a thing, it’s an action. I think there are a lot of people in this world who fit the basic model of what I think would be necessary in someone I would love. I met one of those people, treated him with kindness and respect, and opened myself to him. I happened to have the characteristics of someone he thought he would love, so he treated me with kindness and respect.
I think when you think of love in this way, you don’t just sit back and let it happen. We try every day to love each other. We’re nice to each other, spend time with each other, etc. Love wasn’t something that just appeared that we just live in every day. It’s something we’ve created that requires our constant care. I think if two people are basically compatible and are committed to loving each other, they will. It’s not a thunderbolt, it’s a decision.

10

True loves do not always live near each other. Trust me on this.

11

There is one true love for all who seek him . . .

and his name is Tymp!

12

I suggest that if you want true love, you instead look for someone whom you can understand, love and make happy.

It’s all about giving, not about needing to be given to.

I’ve never understood this Jerry McGuire bit about “completing me”. What were you before? What was it that you were unable to provide for yourself, and now are so happy that you’ve found someone from whom you can demand this factor for the rest of your life? Way to ditch self-reliance.

13

I take a look at this approach as more of a yin/yank, Missing Piece Meets the Big O sort of way.

As a male human being, I have this natural desire to crave feminimity, not only in a partner, but within myself. Of course, the easiest way to find the “sister within” is through a mate. So, the “you complete me” aspect of Jerry Maguire was very true to me, but others I know abhored it.

Sometimes, even though I’m as reasonably self-reliable as I can possibly be, I feel incomplete and lonely. I think a mate would solve that problem. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

14

I’m not sure whether you can make love happen. But you have choices about how open to it you are.

In any given situation, you can choose to be open to the possibilities of connection with another human being (looking for commonalities, trying to understand another’s perspective) vs. being scared or defensive (concentrating more on the differences, or afraid that the differences might signal incompatibility).

I also believe we really tend to idealize the kind of “love” that leads to long-term relationships. I believe the following are myths that serve to make us unrealistic about our fellow beings and lead to friction:

  1. The idea that your ideal person will somehow “make you happy” and fill a hole in your life.

Sure, we can make each other happy. But there’s this idea that somehow our partners are obligated to function that way that leads to resentment and tension. If your partner can’t always improve your mood, does that mean it’s not love? We are sometimes unhappy in our own skins and our partners can’t fix it. Being in a relationship doesn’t really fundamentally change us, we still have all the same neuroses and life problems we had before the relationship. Life can still be difficult at times. It doesn’t magically become happily ever after. I notice we often (sometimes subconsciously) resent our partners when it dawns on us that this is true.

It’s also interesting how we usually talk about “someone who’s going to make me happy” instead of “someone I can share my happiness with”. It’s so often framed in terms of what someone else can do for us, and rarely discussed as a real balance (and often a tricky one).

Bottom line: if you can’t be happy alone, don’t expect that to change when you’re involved. Otherwise don’t expect it to last very long.

  1. The idea that love takes care of itself if it’s “real”.

Any long-term relationship requires real work. There’s this notion that we will somehow magically find someone and that if it’s the “right one”, there will always be a tendency for things to “work out”. Hell no. There will be days when you wake up and look at each other and wonder what the hell you’re doing and just because you don’t know doesn’t mean it isn’t love. It means that sometimes achieving intimacy, even with someone you know well, requires effort. And sometimes each of us is unreachable, no matter what, and we need time to sort ourselves out before we can return to the game, so to speak.

Also, if you become to complacent in a relationship, you are no longer looking to be surprised or learn new things about your partner. Then you are no longer in a relationship with them, but with this idea of them that you carry around in your head. To really be with your partner requires dispensing with the assumption that you “know” them, and learning to see them freshly and allow them the possibility of change. That’s work too.

Bottom line: on some days the “right one” can look like a total stranger. If that’s a problem, don’t expect to be in a long-term relationship.

  1. The idea that there’s someone who’s “best” for us, and if we don’t find that person, we’re “settling” for something less.

If you’re willing to see past #'s 1 and 2, you might begin to realize there’s quite a number of people who you could conceivably spend a long time with. Of course, because you don’t always feel equally strong about one person, you certainly can’t always feel equally strong about all the possibilities, and in fact the order of the list might frequently change.

I don’t know how many great relationships I’ve seen ruined because somebody concluded, just because at that particular time they felt more strongly about person B then they did about person A, that they should leave person A for person B. And what happens later when you feelings for person B change and either A or C seems like a better bet?

This stuff is not absolute. Idealizing the constancy of attraction leads to isolation.

Bottom line: If you’re always looking for “best” at any given moment, you’ll never be in a long-term relationship.

I could go on, but this is already contending for my longest post here. In sum, my point is that all the mythologizing and idealizing ends up making us lonely when we could easily be more realistic about people and have more love in our lives.

15

I have to agree with psycat90 and Retief.

I had heard of soulmates finding each other and believed that was possible, but I seriously questioned that there was only one true love. I had thought that most likely I lost my chance of being with a soulmate when someone very close to me tragically lost his life. He was not a “one true love”, but he was a soulmate.

All of that changed when Libertarian came into my life. Not only is he my soulmate, but he is my one true love.

16

Ah, if only I was drunk enough to tell my story, surely it would bring tears to your eyes.

Sometimes there is only one true love in a lifetime but that person doesn’t feel the same way. My username says it all, a hermit I am and a hermit I shall remain.

Excuse me, I’m going to go get wasted and shoot myself now…or maybe not.

17

Maybe. I know that I’ve met people who met thier true love at 19, and people who have never met them. Maybe if you’re lucky.

18

I used to say the same thing, once.

I was perfectly self-reliant as far as finding my own happiness goes. I was a whole, multifaceted human being. And I said that the whole Jerry Maguire thing was bullshit. Who the hell needs someone to complete them? I wasn’t looking for half a person. I was looking for someone who was like me, who was not afraid to find his OWN happiness, rather than relying on me for it.

And I found one. And then I realized that as perfectly fine and whole as I am on my own, together we can do so much more than either of us could alone. We complete one another. And while neither of us were giant sucking need-holes searching for this from another person, our lives are certainly better and more complete because of it.

19

It took the internet to find my wife. :slight_smile: We met online, after both of us had given up finding a decent member of the opposite sex. We didn’t click, we collided. It’s still amazing how much we are alike, and yet grew up totally different. She loves my parents, and gets along with my Mom wonderfully. Being in love is great. And I pissed off a lot of naysayers among the group we met in by finding my one true love and marrying her and staying happy.

Works for me.