My best friend completed her nineteenth trip around the sun yesterday and it has sparked a speculation of mine: what if humans only either find a platonic or a romantic soulmate? With profound confirmation bias in my life, I’m starting to believe that this might be true.
To provide an idea of how unbelievably fated my friendship is with my best friend, Amina, there is footage on my family’s 2000s camcorder that I found from the day I was born that shows her in her mother’s arms, before my family ever even knew her. After my birth that July morning in 2005, my dad had to hurry to Center Stage Dance Studio to watch my oldest sister perform at her princess camp and of course, took a video of it for my mom to see later as she was still at the hospital with me. The video mainly highlighted my sister, but it also happened to showcase the studio owner and her baby. Little did we know, that studio owner was the mother of my future platonic soulmate and that baby was Amina.
Now, my older sister went on quickly to find passions outside of dance, but I decided to begin it competitively as a third grader through Center Stage. In the following year, I was selected to have a lyrical duet with the studio owner’s daughter to help bring me out of my shell. She was the sun and I was the moon, she was loud and I was quiet. So, between hours of rehearsal and sharing the stage, me and Amina became inseparable and our assignment together made sense.
With dance, I have been granted the privilege of checking “found platonic soulmate” off my goal list. Amina and I are locked in for life; she is my other half and we never fail to be there for each other. That includes during the most difficult, embarrassing, or trying times. Never have I met someone who just got me as much as Amina does. Not exclusively through dance, but similarly art, astrology, books, equestrianism, video games, and so forth, my best friend and I are arguably the same person. We even decided on the same college major…
Alongside my best friend, I have the healthy desire to find my romantic soulmate too. However, I certainly haven’t been as successful with this as I have with finding my platonic soulmate. Can you imagine being the sole sibling of four who hasn’t married their high school sweetheart? I can, because that’s my reality and something I’ve noticed is how despite their romantic prosperities, none of them have a best friend as close to them as I do. That brings me back to my hypothesis regarding whether humans actually get either a platonic or romantic soulmate, nothing else. Therefore, my (probably irrational) fear of never finding true love gets exacerbated. I’d be lying if I said the occasional fear of dying alone doesn’t plague my mind from time to time.
In no way am I trying to undermine my gratitude for my best friend or the happiness I have for my siblings and their partners. Simply, I am exploring the (hopefully) temporary cynicism I naturally have before meeting “the one.” Until then, I’ll be frequently driving from the East to the West coast of Michigan to spend time with my platonic soulmate who I was lucky enough to have found in my girlhood and perhaps, she is all I need.