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The word soulmate is seriously overused and I think it has lost much of its impact because of how liberally it is sprinkled about. Listen to your average group of teengirls and they will eventually start talking about their boyfriend, who has lasted more than two weeks and therefore must be their soulmate. Listen to a group of women and wait for the pair who share the same taste in bags or shoes and have decided that their shopping compatability makes them soulmates. It seems that if you happen to share an enthusiasm for something with another person they are automatically your soulmate.

Let's have a look at the dictionary definition shall we?

soulmate or soul mate

One of two persons compatible with each other in disposition, point of view or sensitivity.

Clear enough and no reason at all why it shouldn't include the examples I gave above. If that is so why does it feel wrong to apply the term to shopping buddies or ephemeral teen romances? Because we have come to regard the word as having an abiding affiliation with love. The kind of love most of us only ever dream of. The all encompassing, world excluding love for another human being that comes once in a lifetime and you regret eternally if you allow it to pass you by or indeed if it never comes to you.

There is historical evidence that suggests a belief that man and woman were originally one whole and were sundered at a later date (Check out Plato's Symposium or Edgar Cayce) and that we are actually two halves eternally searching until we can be rejoined. Literally two halves of a whole. A lovely romantic notion and I have nothing against that argument either. Or the beautiful image of the twin flame/soul. But... and there is always a but, the question we are asked here is about personal definition of the term.

To me the word soulmate means one person with whom you are unafraid. I know who my soulmate is. With him I have never felt any of those inhibitions that enchain love between humans. We have all been in a relationship and thought 'I'm not going to tell him/her that. I need to keep a little mystery (or I am too ashamed). I have never had a single instance where I thought anything remotely like that with the man who is my soulmate. He knows everything about me. I have told him my life story without shame. Even those deep dark secrets that I am sometimes afraid to face myself, let alone tell to another, especially to someone I desperately wanted to love me as I did him.

I was so scared as my tale unfolded. Terrified the life I had led would send him running, disgusted by the things I'd done. How was I to know back then that he had his share of such tales, such dirty little secrets (and not so secrets too). Secrets and lies which now lay between us. He never ran, never even blinked. Just smiled, took my secrets in as I did his and walked on with his hand in mine.

Have you ever truly looked into someone's eyes? Eyes that know your innermost soul because they own a piece of it? Looked with eyes that hold the same knowledge? It is an epiphany, a moment that steals your breath and stops your heart. The knowledge that there is one person in this world who knows you so well that they could be you, lies in those eyes, reflected and echoed.

To know you are loved is divine. To know you are whole is beyond description and is prove enough that the jealous gods may well have had a hand in our seperation for it is to be truly happy with no need for others, no gods and no human kin. Needing only your soulmate.

Learn more about this author, Gillian Taber.
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