This past week, I revealed to one of my guy friends that once thought I had met my soulmate. This led to us discussing what we believe about soulmates and since there’s controversy on this topic, I decided to dive into it with a blog post.
According to google, this is the definition of a soulmate:
-
a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.I agree with google that a soulmate can either be a friend or a significant other but I disagree with the “ideally suited” part, whatever that means. I’ll explain why from my own experience.I thought I met my soulmate in Summer 2012 when I went to Kenya and worked at the Institute of Primate Research having fun with monkeys among other things while also living in the same forest they were housed in. While in Kenya, I was talking to many different guys cause flings seemed better suited for my short stint. One day I was meeting up with a guy friend who was coming from the city to come meet me in the suburbs where I was living. While I was asking one of my co-workers of suggestions of good places to go out, she suggested that me and my friend join her and her friends to an outing to one of the happening night clubs in the area. All was going well until we decided to pre-game at a bar at one of the local shopping centers. This led them to start talking about one of their friends who was basically described as an alcoholic and who would most likely be at the same bar. So they called him up and it turned out he was there so he went to join him there. Mind you, my date hadn’t arrived yet so I was open to it since the place to the bus stop my friend would meet me.
When we went to the pregame spot, I was introduced to about three different guys so I wasn’t sure who the supposed alcoholic was. However, I did feel a lot of attraction and intrigue to one of the guys, he was tall, handsome, and as you probably wouldn’t guess, he was also white (yes Kenya has white people who actually live there). Fortunately, the two other guys left and were left with the white guy who I’ll call Lucky ( cause I do think he has a lot of mystical fortune). I shortly discovered that he was a chain smoker just like my co-worker (usually this is a turn off for me but for some reason, I didn’t think much about it cause a lot of Kenyans are social smokers when they’re drinking). It was clear that there was mutual interest between Lucky and I which was a weird predicament to be in especially when my date finally arrived. Upon his arrival, we all moved to a different bar and we were all now sitting in a circle of chairs getting to know each other. I remember bringing up my spiritual beliefs( see My Spiritual Journey (No propaganda involved) and somehow that intrigued Lucky who was into meditation and some buddhism tenets. At this point my co-worker’s boyfriend had arrived and her other friends from before had left. So this was an awkward group of five with two couples but ironically it was my date who became the odd one out because of the chemistry between Lucky and I. After enough pre-gaming, we moved to the night club and things became even more awkward because I would take turns dancing with both guys. My date would find other girls to dance with so it was cool to some level. At the end of the night, I was very forward and got Lucky’s number.
The next day, Saturday, I texted Lucky and he later called me proposing we go out and of course I said yes despite my co-worker sending me a “judgy text” stating that my behavior the night before was interesting. At the time, I didn’t feel much guilt because I wasn’t committed to anyone so I didn’t see anything wrong with what I did. Anyway, we went to a pretty cool rave even though he was clearly nervous in the beginning especially considering I was almost about an hour late to the date (I blame Nairobi traffic). To be funny, I bought him a pair of socks on the bus that I was on (they’re a lot of random hawkers selling different things on Kenyan public transport, I think this is very common in Africa overall). He didn’t seem very impressed with the gift which is probably the natural reaction to getting socks as a gift but later that night he gave me, a wooden rosary that he wore on his neck. Later he wanted to go to a late night pharmacy to buy something and I won’t go into what he bought, but that’s when I realized that he might have some addiction issues. During the next few days, alcohol was always involved in our activities and I pleaded with him to get some help. Similar to a stereotypical addict, he cited that his life had been difficult etc ( keep in mind that this guy is from a very wealthy background and didn’t have to go to university because he would be the future CEO of his parents’ business regardless). He were both infatuated with each other but I tried to stay level-headed. For example, he once claimed that he would buy me the new Ranger Rover Evogue if I stayed in Kenya with him and of course, I said no. This was also the summer after Whitney Houston passed away from a drug overdose and in the back of my head was a voice saying, Mercy your parents worked way too hard for you future for you to ruin it with a drug addicted love interest. So when he became distrustful when I went to visit my family friends in Nyeri (where I am from), I decided to let the fling go and moved on to the next one.
It wasn’t until I was about to leave Kenya that I started to think that maybe Lucky could have been my soulmate. He wasn’t “ideally suited” as google claims but we did have a lot in common. He also seemed to just get who I am and we had a lot of chemistry. Part of me started wondering maybe I could have helped him fight his addictions but another part of me knew that was a decision he’d have to make himself. I honestly have never met another person who has made me feel that way. But maybe google is right and when I meet my true soulmate, he will be “ideally suited” for me.
broughttoamerica.com 