Anybody, could you please define the concept of "the one"? Is it something from the real world (I hope not, otherwise I must live in different alternative reality)?
Is everybody assumed to have exactly one "the one"? (among all people he/she meets in his/her life?)
It depends on who you ask. Some people believe that each person has a "one" soul mate who will complete them and make them happy. This, however, results in a challenge because you then have to find that soul mate and realize it when you have indeed found him or her.
Others, like myself, believe that any one person can choose to be happy with any of a number of people. In other words, I'm happily married to husband A, but I could have been as happily married had I chosen to marry potential spouse B, C, or D. This is a less romantic view, I suppose, as it is more practical.
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It's totally ridiculous to think that there's only "ONE" soulmate out there, if you lived in London and that soulmate lived in Cairo how would you or meet them. It's more the type of person you are and the type of person you meet at what time in your life you meet them. When I was young I went through a string girlfriends like you wouldn't believe. When I look back I can now ee that at least half of themwould have made great "soulmates". Doesn't mean my current wife isn't a soulmate, she certainly is. Of course that's what sells Hollywood movies.
shareYeah because it's so impossible for "the one" to be from a different country...
-- I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been
My husband believes fate brought us together because he lived on the other side of the world and moved here when he was a young teenager. And then a series of messed up incidents brought him into my life. I hate the idea of soul mate and fate because I don't like the idea, and don't find in realistic. But this movie is strictly fantasy to me. I love my husband, and I argue with him from time to time about Fate, but his belief in fate likely makes us stronger, because it makes all those messed up things that ended up bringing us together all worth it. Some people need that reassurance belief. I tend to believe that if he didn't find me he would have found someone else, but that idea hurts, so I get that Fate helps other people keep moving in their lives, like how the belief in God helps people not feel alone in life. I'm more realistic though, and I over think things. Ignorance is Bliss.
shareI'm more realistic though, and I over think things. Ignorance is Bliss.
Population of the world: approximately 7 billion
Assuming you're not bisexual, that amounts to 3.5 billion people who might be "the One" for you.
On average, you'll need to search through half of that group before you find "the One", so that's a mere 1.75 billion people you'll need to meet and check out.
Therefore, assuming you're a good speed-dater and can evaluate someone in 10 minutes, and never sleep or do anything else... you'll meet "the One" after (on average) just 33,295 years.
Of course, your "One" will have grown old and died long 33,200 years earlier.
If there's only one person out there for each person, then it's amazing the human race survives at all :^)
No, the concept of "the one" is not real.
The reality is some people, really generous and empathetic types, have very many potential soul-mates.
The other reality is that really selfish people who never have real empathy for others have absolutely no soul-mates at all. Or if they do, it is a similar type and the two will never really be happy together. But they will think they are happy together.
TxMike
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.
Here's my belief. I do believe that everyone has one person who is best for them, hence their soul mate. However, I don't think that you're soul mate is the only person you can be happy with. I mean, logically speaking, with all the people in the world, there are going to be tons who are going to be terrible for you and tons who are going to be absolutely great for you, but at the same time, one of them has to be the "best" for you, because the word "best" implies only one. If that makes any sense...
Lame analogy: Cheesecake is my favorite desert, it is my soul mate of deserts. However, if I were to never have tried cheesecake in my life, and only tried red velvet cake (my second favorite desert), I would be happy. I may have been happier if I had been eating cheesecake instead, but I wouldn't know that because I've never tried it so it doesn't matter...
Thank you all for your opinions/beliefs.
I sense from your answers that you're mostly considering only the self-centered view (sorry for my maybe too rude choice of words, English is not my native language): what is best for me..
But the concept of "the one" assumes that if somebody is best for you than you are the best for her/him as well. This is ridiculous for me as a mathematician, that relation is not possible in any complex system.
And please don't blame me for bringing up the math here, this is more like "what is best cannot be worst at the same time" (naive and simple idea) kind of thing..
I agree about the importance of mutuality: it is sometimes ignored that considering someone perfect for you is not enough, they must also consider you perfect for them in order for the relationship to work. This is the main reason for break-ups anyway, i.e. the fact that usually each person expects different things from the other.
The necessity of mutuality is also a factor that limits very much the possibilities of successful relationships, along with the external/unpredictable life incidents (sh!t happens...) that can put couples through struggle and ultimately break them apart however strong their love may be. All things considered, a romantic relationship is more likely to end (because there are so many things that can go wrong) and if it doesn't, this is against the odds. In that sense, given the rather high improbability of a relationship lasting forever, the one that does is "THE ONE".
I don't believe in soulmates and I believe that there are many people out there who can be "THE ONE", but the mathematical possibilities are that in our life span, we will have at most one relationship that will endure all the troubles and obstacles, and that may be called "THE ONE", even if it is not written in the stars nor predicted by match-making factors.
~*~
"Lame analogy: Cheesecake is my favorite desert, it is my soul mate of deserts. However, if I were to never have tried cheesecake in my life, and only tried red velvet cake (my second favorite desert), I would be happy. I may have been happier if I had been eating cheesecake instead, but I wouldn't know that because I've never tried it so it doesn't matter..."
This analogy may work for you but other peoples tastes and preferences may be different. Personally, I don't have a favorite food. There is a wide range of foods that I really enjoy and any one of those foods may be perfect for me given a certain mood or circumstance, but that could and will change as does the circumstance. I think this is also true about the way people fall in love.
I think there are many people that will be best for you, and at the same time nothing and no one is ever perfect and you will find flaws on everyone sooner or later.
Thinking about a "Best" one doesn't really help because sometimes you could meet 2 best ones, how would you choose? Also what defines best?
As for anyone that believes in a soulmate, it makes me wonder, since when did humans would have a soulmate? did cavemen have soulmates?
for that matter, do animals have soulmates? OR did people start to get soulmates sent from God when they started to become smarter?
Amazingly put and that is what I think too
u can be happy with someone, happier with another, less happy with a third person
but that is as long as u want to be, coz u might be with someone so good and u think u deserve better so u feel sad while if u looked at it differently u would've been happier
so as long as u tried only red velvet and never thought of cheesecake then u would be able to be happy.
"It is never about what happened, it is only how you look at it!"
I do tend to think in terms of finding 'the one', but more in the sense of that being 'the one' I will spend my life with, rather than 'the one' single person in the world with whom I could spend my life. I don't think there's anyone out there with whom you will just fit perfectly and everything will be easy, and I think a lot of people these days spend a really long time with someone before making a commitment because they want to make sure that that person is 'the one' and it will work out, but at some point you just have to make the choice to commit to a person and make it work.
"Just because you understand the mechanics of how something works doesnt make it any less of a miracle"
I don't think you can really choose to be happy with anyone. I do think that every person has a huge number of people they can be happy with though.
"Cool will get ya dead." -Former NBA Power Forward, Karl Malone
Yeah I didn't mean you could make it work with just anyone. I just realized I wrote that comment exactly a month before I met my now husband.
"Just because you understand the mechanics of how something works doesn't make it any less of a miracle"
Personally, I don't buy into the theory of there being just one and only option for you, for the rest of your life. What I do believe is that you have thousands of compatible options on the planet, and it's your choice whether you want to spend the rest of your life with one of them or not.
In other words, I don't believe that it's been decided before you were born who you were going to spend the rest of your life with. You and you alone decide IF you want to spend the rest of your life with a certain someone, and and you alone decide WHO that certain someone is going to be.
Nobody's really addressed the o.p.'s question. The concept of "the one" most likely originated with the Greek comic playwright Aristophanes, whose story was documented in Plato's "Symposium." In a nutshell, the story is that humans were originally two souls in a single body (two sets of arms, legs, faces) but Zeus thought these rotund creatures were too powerful and defiant so he split them in two. Since that time, we've all roamed the earth trying to find our other halves. The tale was oddly animated and eloquently set to music as "The Origin of Love" in the movie "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." No doubt you can find the video on YouTube.
So until we start finding corpses from a civilization of people with 4 arms and 4 legs, I think it's safe to say it's a flawed concept. However, there are people who are compatible in a freaky way that defines all rational logic. From a personal standpoint, I've experienced that twice (like the dude in the movie, my first died), so I don't think there is just "one."
It's a simple romantic notion.
Go with it even if it's not literal.
Statistically, 95% of people marry others born somewhere within 60 miles and +/- 5 years.
More accurate would be if you said another trope "you're one in a million."
Yet that still means there are 2000 of you in China.