Valentine's Day: Recognizing Your Soulmate

Bob Giusti 

​So Valentine’s Day is upon us. It’s become a tradition around WBOB headquarters that I contribute some words and thoughts to commemorate this greeting card-candy-florist economic engine. Even if you hate this day, you can always smell the hope of Spring around the corner.

For the record, Valentines Day is meant to show appreciation and admiration for someone in a romantic connotation. For some of us, it may mean taking the bold step of professing your love for someone (maybe even anonymously) for the first time. For others it is a day to celebrate with a current partner. Perhaps your soul mate.

That concept. Soul mate. Everybody either desires one, thinks they have one or grieves the loss of one. How can something so intangible have so many faithful believers?

Soulmates do not appear out of nowhere. In fact, we may not even immediately recognize someone as our soulmate the first time we are introduced. We can become each other’s soul mates as the result of a deep and lasting love relationship. If humans can develop finely honed skills in music, athletics, and language arts, wouldn’t it be equally possible for them to become perfectly suited and completely irreplaceable to someone they are attracted to?

Like any life skill, sometimes a partnership can become so multifaceted and the compatibilities so intricately intertwine, that one's partner can feel like they could never be replaced by anyone else. Two individuals who have become perfect for and irreplaceable to each other have become soul mates.

It could be argued that love of a deep and meaningful kind is only possible when there is complete honesty. If being loved is based on being known for who you are and cherished despite your flaws, then the feelings one has during the initial cocaine-rush phase of a relationship can’t be true love can it? These feelings would be some combination of other pleasurable things, like hope and attraction, and illusions of the soul-mate variety.

It’s almost like a picture book for children verses the great American Novel. In early romance the fancy and colorful illustrations are enough. We add our own texts and set expectations. But over time, when thing stay stable, we begin to fill our chapters with meaningful memories and shared experiences that become a unique bond.

Some of the signs you may have a soulmate:

• Communication without speaking or being able to finish each other’s sentences
• A gut feeling – no other way to explain it – that this person is THE ONE
• Still feeling physically attracted to certain aspects (like their eyes) after years
• Comfortable with the other person – able to be yourself
• You accept the fact that “they know you” including when they can call you out on your bullshit
• That even though you may bicker and argue, when it comes to outside interference – you’re a united front.
• That you may have even known each other for years, and suddenly you are both looking for love at the same time

​I also think, in closing here, that if you are too picky, or fantasize an ideal that is based more on the mythology of “the perfect mate” you may miss out. It is like that film with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets), sometimes you have to appreciate what works.

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