Breaking Down Soulmates: The Most Coveted Relationship

Do you believe in soulmates?

What does the word soulmate mean to you?

Do you think your current partner, if applicable, is your soulmate?

The word soulmate, I think, is overused and is the default explanation when romanticizing a person, often the current significant other, without much thought or deliberation because emotions tend to overrule logic, especially when in a relationship or in pursuit of one.

Inspired by a recent conversation with a friend about relationships and life with a partner, I thought about exactly who a soulmate should be, what a soulmate is, and tried to construct a tangible, albeit evolving and customizable, criteria to qualify and/or classify as one.

A soulmate, in my own definition, is someone who is both aligned and/or complementary (depending on preferences) to your lifestyle, your life’s goals, and your holistic existence as a human being in perpetuity since your initial connection. A soulmate relationship is mutually beneficial with constant equal efforts from both sides or achieving close to perfect equilibrium over the course of both parties’ lives. Simply, it should be two people together who bring out the truest self of each other.

In growth and in stagnation. In triumph and in defeat. In peace and in crises. 

Satisfied with each other. Sulking with each other. Supporting each other. 

I believe there are categories in three prioritization levels essential for any relationship.

For someone to be considered your soulmate, they must align on the prioritization of the connection points and either align or complement (depending on your preferences) on ALL of the subsequent connection points.

For the sake and intentions of this article, the following criteria is based on my own expectations of who I can consider to be my soulmate. The primary connection points for me may be secondary or tertiary for others, and vice versa, and the categories in my primary, secondary, or tertiary, might not necessarily be prioritized similarly in someone else’s criteria.

Before I share my criteria, I thought it would be fun to ground my subjective criteria with facts, namely the size of the population and the breakdown per age. Here’s the table I constructed:

The assumptions I made, of course, were just assumptions and were oversimplified for the sake of calculations (as I had no way of putting into numbers how much of the population would really be filtered out depending on the answers on my criteria). Despite how simple and generous I was with the filtering of the population, the odds do not reflect an increased likelihood of meeting your soulmate. For context, there is a 0.0000003% chance of winning the lottery compared to the 0.0000018% chance of meeting your soulmate between ages 20–24. Per my unofficial calculations, you are six times more likely to meet your soulmate between 20–24 than win the lottery!

Is it worth going on a quest to find your soulmate as much as it is worth playing the lottery $2 at a time? Requiring a 100% match might not be ideal since you risk losing out on great relationships with those who are in the 99th percentile of your preferences, and even those in the C+ range of high 70s.

It’s admirable to aim for the coveted 100% match, but the pursuit of perfection may prove to be putrescent rather than picturesque.

Without further ado, here’s my list to qualify as my soulmate:

1. Primary Connection points (deal-breakers for a romantic relationship to work):
   • Intellectually
     1. Can I talk to you about the things in my mind?
     2. Can you understand me?
     3. Will I find your thoughts to be valuable?
   • Mentally
     1. Are you where I am?
     2. Are you where I should/could be?
     3. How do you approach life?
        1. Optimist or pessimist?
        2. Growth or fixed mindset?
        3. What philosophies do you live by?
     4. Are you logical or emotional?
     5. What are your life principles?
     6. Do you have a good relationship with yourself?
     7. Do you think like I do? Can I respect your thought process?
     8. What kind of relationship are you looking for?
     9. What’s your personality like?
        1. Are you clingy?
        2. Are you introverted or extroverted?
        3. Are you conscientious?
     10. How are you continuously improving yourself?
         1. What influences your thinking?
   • Emotionally
     1. Are you trustworthy?
     2. Can you express your emotions properly?
     3. Do you have a good relationship with your family and friends?
   • Physically
     1. Am I attracted to you?
     2. What’s your relationship with sex? Shoutout to Anderson .Paak, “I’m a stud, no cuckold”
2. Secondary Connection points (amazing to have, tolerable without)
   • Ambition
     1. Are you as driven as I am?
     2. What do you want to do with your life?
     3. Where do you see yourself in five years?
     4. What’s your ultimate goal?
     5. How can you say you’ve lived a successful life?
   • Lifestyle
     1. How quick are you to do the things you want to do?
     2. Are you a night owl or an early bird?
     3. Do you work out? Do you take care of yourself?
     4. Are you a planner or more spontaneous?
     5. How do you see money? What are you spending your money on?
     6. What do you do in your free time?
     7. Do you do drugs? Do you smoke? Are you stupid?
     8. What do you like to do on weekends?
   • Life Plans
     1. What do you want to do with your life?
     2. What are some of the things you want to do? When do you want to do them?
     3. What’s on your bucket list?
     4. What are the things you envision us doing?
     5. What age do you want to get married by? Thoughts on kids?
     6. Where do you want to live?
   • Life Status
     1. What would you say are some of your biggest accomplishments to date?
     2. What are you most proud of in your life right now?
     3. Where are you in your professional life?
     4. Where are you financially?
     5. How educated are you?
     6. Are you where you think you’d be?
     7. How far away are you from where you’d want to be? Are you on track to be where you’d want to be?
     8. Is your present aligned with your future?
   • Social Circle (Family/Friends)
     1. What’s your relationship like with your family?
        1. Are they toxic? Are they healthy? Will I get along with them?
     2. Can your friends be my friends?
        1. Are your friends good influences? Are they holding you back? Are they pushing you towards your goals?
3. Tertiary Connection points (preferences at this point to make the relationship as smooth as it can be, but not a big deal since, I think, this is what friends are for)
   • Diet
     1. Do you have any dietary restrictions?
     2. Do you love food?
     3. What do you like to eat?
     4. What times do you eat?
     5. Where do you like to eat?
   • Religion
     1. How spiritual are you?
     2. How likely are you to persuade me to share your religion?
   • Interests
     1. Are you into sports?
        1. If so, what sports do you like?
        2. Do you watch? Do you play?
     2. What kind of music do you like?
        1. Who are some of your favorite artists? Why do you like them? How long have you liked them?
        2. How much would you spend on a concert?
     3. Do you appreciate art?
        1. What do you consider to be art?
     4. What kind of movies/shows do you like?
        1. At what speed do you watch them?

I think all three priorities are intertwined and are interconnected with each other. The tertiary connection points will influence the secondary connection points, which will show up on the primary connection points, and so on and so forth. How you approach life mentally is a good indicator of your current life status. You, yourself, also have to know the answers to these questions to quickly understand if you’re looking for someone aligned with or someone that complements your thinking.

All in all, I think romantic relationships can work as long as there’s alignment between all of the primary and some of the secondary connection points. 

Love can be compared to an “it factor” that is extremely subjective. Either you feel it or you don’t.

While I may agree to some extent, I will beg to differ. That infatuation and raw emotion can be ephemeral. True love, I think, is the amalgamation of different emotions and different thoughts, everything that we recognize as well as those that are present in our subconscious, either by way of biases, past experiences, or preconceived notions.

Be it a 100%, 90%, or even a 50% match, a relationship worth pursuing, worth having, is a relationship worth pondering, examining, and improving

After all, what’s perfection if not progress persevering?