If you’re climbing out a window, she ain’t your soulmate

I knew our relationship was doomed as soon as he told me he was looking for his soulmate. Something in his intonation, the words he chose, told me, “he’s looking for what can’t be found.”

I was right. He wanted the woman who so innately understood him he didn’t have to explain himself, a single look could do it. The first rush of infatuation wouldn’t fade away, instead, that heady feeling would keep pace with the years.

Problem was, his soulmate would have to have been as immature as he was, and that would have been a disaster.

And as it turned out, years before, he later quietly revealed to me, he’d met her. She was the girlfriend of the lead singer in a local band, a group he greatly admired and got to know over the years. In fact, at one point their lead guitarist quit with no notice and they called him to fill in. The thrill of a lifetime.

So he and Tasha got to know each other, and when her boyfriend was out of town one weekend, she called him. Their illicit romance began. Many a night he would be at her home and Gary, the boyfriend, would stop by, leaving him with two choices: face the music or crawl out the window. He chose the window, every time.

She swore she didn’t love Gary, it was just habit, he was the one she loved. They’d be together soon, she’d make it happen. She promised. Really, she didn’t love Gary.

Then one day she told him it was over. She and Gary were getting married and she couldn’t see him any more. She walked away, crying, and he didn’t expect to ever see her again.

Except a year later he did. Nothing happened, he told me, but she looked so unhappy. She swore she and Gary were fine, but deep in his heart he knew she regretted leaving him.

“Oh come on!” I said. “This was your soulmate? You two deserve each other. Of course it was ‘wonderful’ and ‘romantic.’ It was forbidden. If you’d been up front about the whole thing it all would have ended in six months like every other one of your relationships.”

He told me I didn’t get it. He was sad for me because he knew someday I’d compromise rather than hold out for my soulmate.

“Yea, don’t worry about me,” I assured him. “Just listen to your story a little more closely.”

Today, thirty some years later, Tasha and Gary are still married, and he’s still waiting for his soulmate. The other one, that is. Surely there’s a backup…

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