I caught a Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie writing prompt this morning, asking us to write about soul mates.

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I’ve got to say, I don’t believe in any of it, this idea that two people are just destined to end up together, anyway.

When I first met my wife, Friends was airing for the first time on tv. Phoebe talked about lobsters – you know, two lobsters will meet each other then will pair for life… All very romantic, but I don’t think it works like that for humans.

In my teens and twenties I did that whole falling in love thing three or four times. At the time, it is forever, but then it ends. With all those three or four, I look back and think lucky escape. It’s a bit easier now to be objective, to see the differences which ultimately split us up. I can see it for what it was – two people hook up together for a short while, then look for pastures new.

I think at twenty it is impossible to tell what we want in a partner. I was thirty when I met my partner, by which time I had a fair idea. I knew, at least, that it was something to get into bit-by-bit, rather than head-over-heels. We were together a longtime before we talked about love.

So are we lobsters? Well, my wife likes to think so, but I don’t agree. I think that, if we hadn’t have hooked up with each other, we’d have hooked up with somebody else. (I would have, anyway 🤣.) Seriously, we’re both good people. Whether other relationships would have lasted as long as we have, I don’t know.

So, made for each other, no. Happy coincidence, yes. We met because we happened to be in the same bar on the same night – a bar I never went to before or since, and only decided to go to at all when my friend suggested it, ten minutes earlier. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world… the probability of meeting this particular woman was so minute, how could it possibly have been planned? Besides, something planning all of this does not fit in with my beliefs in any case (for that is ultimately what it comes down to – it’s evolution versus intelligent design). Maybe if I did believe something different, I might have a different view?

Sorry, hopelessly unromantic. Having children does that to a person.