Soulmates.

For two days now I have been pondering a certain question. At first (yesterday) I kept thinking that the desire to formulate an answer would sort of evaporate, like water on a warm rock. But it’s now tomorrow and the moisture is still upon me. So, I resolved to meet myself for coffee right after work and at least begin to resolve this thing. Here I am now at Starbucks in the mega-bookstore, and here is the question:

If you had the choice of one intimate soulmate and no other close friends, or of no such soulmate and many friends and acquaintances, which would you choose?

The way that this question is worded (phrased) is deliberate, and I will mention what I see as its inherent limitations, later on. But first off, I think that a quick answer to it is more difficult than may first appear. This is why I have been pondering it now, for about 40 hours. If you yourself answer it instantly, read it again.
By way of beginning to speak of how I arrive at a current answer for myself [Note: I tend to use the word “current” whenever I speak of personal conclusions, as this leaves the door slightly ajar, and allows the possibility of revision when further ponderance suggests that amendments are in order]..... I first contemplate the following:
- I dislike smalltalk, fake talk, and/or phony talk. I dislike pretension, and the posing that often goes on in human relations. I value politeness wilfully given much moreso than politeness that is required. To be honest, I am not all that good at trying to acquire friends, as I do not sense the internal need to do so. “No man is an island” said Donne, but seriously I am about as close to being one as you can get.
- I dislike being agreeable for the sake of being agreeable. Neither do I like being argumentative for the sake of argument. And one thing that is very important to me is critical thinking. By critical I mean thinking that places as high a priority on good questions as it does good answers. Thinking that is as willing to be wrong, as right. As I get older, I am finding that I tend to like doubt, and those who are capable of doubting, morseo than I like surety, and those who tend to be certain of everything.
- I love camaraderie, but only if it is selective, meaningful, deep... as opposed to indiscreet, random, shallow.
- In a nutshell, I dislike people that ask insincere questions. [They ask you something, and then before you can answer, they’ve asked you a second thing...] And BIGGEE: I cannot be friends with someone that feels they have an agenda for me to adhere to or follow.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. These are just a few of the things that I thought about today as I arrived at the conclusion that I currently am not at all the type of person that places a high value on superficiality in friendships. These deeply felt things reveal that I am not one that “takes easily” to other people. I began to definitely realize that I would much rather have five or six really close friends than a hundred fairweather friends.
But the question is more severe than this. It asks about the ONE intimate soulmate.
One person.
It is tough.
I know that my current answer would probably not be the statistically popular one (in fact, I just asked an acquaintance of mine here in the coffee shop, and he instantly said he would choose the “many friends and acquaintances”).... but I am going with the one soulmate.
I would rather have the one soulmate.

Someone may say... “Dude, that may not help you out too much when you have to load your stuff into the moving van!”
I know all this.... you are probably saying this because you are shuddering at that phrase “no other close friends”.... but, do you know what I shudder at? That phrase “no such soulmate.”
I am choosing to emphasize that part of the equation.
Anne of Green Gables called it a “kindred spirit” meaning somone who really knows you, the depth of you. Someone you could laugh with, and cry with, talk as well as be silent with. You could be with them and do nothing, and that would be good.

Not to belabor it, but I think that we can tend to de-value what it means to have friends.
I wonder how the value (the worth) of friends can be expressed numerically, I really do.
In thinking of all this stuff I recall a song performed by Garth Brooks. Now, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. I am not against country music, nor am I against the drinking of alcohol. I personally endorse the existence of both of these things, in moderation. But there is this honky-tonky bar-type song Garth does, and it’s called Friends In Low Places.... if you have a radio or horse with a saddle on it, (and especially BOTH) you have probably heard it. At the final chorus, everyone who has just drunk their own body weight in alcohol joins in and chants:

'Cause I've got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I've got friends in low places.

No you don’t.
I disagree with the song. I don’t want to be a party-pooper, I know it is just meant to be a fun sing-along, not a discussion of what friendship is, and it is fun to clink glasses with strangers sometimes, and regale each other with mutual stories of adversity and whatnot, but the point I would make is this.... they are strangers! The song talks about meeting people in the bar and becoming these terrific friends all of a sudden.
You’re not friends.
You’re PICKLED!
Half of those friends are hoping that your dang wallet flies out of that shirt of yours with the next line-dance! They’ll scoop that thing off the floor before you can say “the next round’s on me!”

“Oh,Cipriano, you’re so cynical!”
“Thank you. I will take that as a compliment as I meditate upon whatever the opposite of cynical is....”

In contrast to the friendology of Garth Brooks (and in all fairness, that particular song is not written by him), I think of the great thinker, C.S. Lewis, and how he differentiated between what he called Companionship and Friendship. I think he was really onto something here, when he wrote:
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”.... In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? – Or at least, “do you care about the same truth?” The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.
-- taken from The Four Loves, ch.4, paragraphs 16 and 18 –

He or she need not agree with us about the answer. So true, I think. Lewis really knew how to say it. For me, the above would be the requisite beginning stages of someone who may be discovering a soulmate.
In tentative conclusion, there is only one thing I would like to say about the initial question. It deliberately limits the “soulmate” issue to the existence of only one soulmate.
But life itself does not place such a limitation upon us.
I believe that we can have several “soulmates”. We can be wonderfully aware of having several “kindred spirits” for friends.
But you cannot have one, without being one.
People, like even the clearest of lakes, have depths to them that you cannot possibly know unless you are willing to hold your breath for a bit, dive in, and fight a sort of reverse gravity to get towards the bottom. And even then, closed eyes will not do. You must open them.
You’ll know if someone is a potential soulmate, if they let you do the diving.
You’ll know if you are one, if you let them into the lakeness of you.
You’ll know then that the greatest thing about finding a soulmate, is being one.