Soulmating the World

Jem and I recently had a brief discussion on the topic of soulmates. Not sure how it came up… oh right, we were making fun of the pathetic and perpetually “Confused” losers who write in to advice columnists describing how their partner is full of infidelity, children everywhere, sometimes there’s physical abuse and don’t forget the constant lies but “he swears he loves me and says we’re soulmates and I love him and couldn’t live without him so please tell me where this relationship is going….” He and I both know that we’ll never be hired on as advice experts because we’d respond with as much warmth and compassion as a stapler or a bowl of coleslaw but we like to dream.

So then we moved on to this whole soulmate deal. I remember watching Dawson’s Creek and gagging everytime they used that term for Dawson and Joey only because they thought that by beating the viewer over the head constantly with it we would collectively understand and accept that, indeed they were destined to be together… only they didn’t and I was ever so happy about that because I very much disliked him and his gigantic head and preferred Pacey. Asides from the gay name, he played for the Mighty Ducks and they’re superstars… and he was so much hotter and cooler than Dawson. Where were we? So yah, I don’t recall why exactly they were soulmates other than the fact that Dawson was obsessively possessive of Joey but that to me does not make them… y’know, that word.

I don’t believe in this concept of soulmates, people destined to be together, sharing past lives and having their love written in the stars for several reasons. With a world population of roughly 6.5 billion, what are the chances your soulmate lives down the street from you? That would really suck if you lived in some back swamp Louisiana and she lived in a Derjiskistani yurt because the chances of you guys meeting are remote to the nth degree. If people are destined to end up with their other half, doesn’t that take away the idea of free will? Would you still qualify for a soulmate if you didn’t believe in destiny and astrology? And what if you don’t even like each other? That might make things complicated as well as her being 92 and you having reached the ripe old age of 16 last week which makes me think of something else. If your soulmate dies, will you be alone for the rest of your life? Or maybe life would just supremely suck because anyone else you hook up with will only be a poor substitute for the real thing. Like butter and margarine, sugar and sweetener, Chippendales and the portly neighbourhood flasher…

You can see that I don’t believe in a lot of things they tell me. As a highly skeptical person I’m more about needing proof first… another reason I don’t do church. So no soulmates for me, and none for Jem either. He’s jaded too, but it’s people like us who even the keel for the kooks out there who believe a stranger can magically fix their problems in the daily papers. What they need to do instead, is to extract heads out of ass, wipe poo from eyes and look reality in the face. How's that for advice?