One day you’ll meet someone and when you look into his or her eyes you will instantly know that this is the one you are meant to spend your life with. This person completes you. This person is your soul mate.

I like to believe in soul mates. I also like to believe in karma, angels, and crop circles. It’s a comfort for me to think that one day I could be squeezed in next to the man of my dreams on a subway train. For one thing, it makes using Line 1 during rush hour a whole lot more bearable.

Women in their late teens and early twenties are the most likely to believe in soul mates. Having grown up on a diet of fairytales and romcoms, an unhealthy belief has formed that one day a handsome prince, or Ryan Gosling, will come knocking on their doors and propose marriage.

But by the time a woman reaches her mid-thirties, and Ryan still hasn’t turned up, isn’t it time for her to be a bit more realistic? Should she continue to wait for ‘the one’, or should she marry Bryan – the guy who lives next door, who would make good husband and father material, but just doesn’t set her world alight?

The trouble with soul mates is the high pedestal we place them on. People expect their soul mate to be a person who will suddenly make their life make sense. Psychologists consider the term ‘soul mate’ to not only present damagingly high expectations, but also an easy excuse for not putting enough effort into a relationship. We’re all guilty of ending relationships on minor differences because we thought something more perfect for us would come along. However, psychologists argue that our pursuit of the elusive 'one’ means that we’re ending perfectly decent relationships on prerequisites.

As this psychologist says, “(…)if there was such a thing as soul mates (…) that would mean that being in relationship would make you grow and expand your soul—a soul mate would not be a get-out-of-the-hard-work-that-is-relationships card. As a rule soul growth and or any kind of growth requires some pain, sweat and, at least, mild moments of misery.”

And when did we all start believing in soul mates anyway? Well we could blame the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato presents the idea that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. Zeus, the one with anger issues, feared their power and split them all in half, encumbering us all half souls, perpetually in search of our other half to make us whole again.

It’s a charming theory, but let’s not forget that Plato was also the guy who said “death is not the worst thing that can happen to men”. Hmmm.
The belief in soul mates also has roots in religion. Jewish people believe that 40 days before a child is born, its soul mate, or “Bashert” is already decided upon.

But the most influential factors in our lives today have to be the love songs, TV, and romantic films we brainwash ourselves with on a regular basis.

Who can forget the movie Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise told Renee Zellweger, “You complete me”. And who didn’t cry watching City of Angels, when Nicholas Cage said “I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it”? We sing along to lyrics such as Elton John’s Your Song, “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve put down in words, how wonderful life is now you’re in the world,” and The Goo Goo Dolls sing “You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be.” The media has built up our hopes of everlasting passion, love, and led us to believe that somewhere out there in this big bad world, there’s a person who has all the answers.

Chinese women are considerably more grounded when it comes to finding a ‘soul mate’. Like me, my Chinese friend is a 28-year-old singleton, but unlike me, she considers the idea of a soul mate as childish as a belief in the bogie man. For her, her soul mate is a man with a good head of hair, big eyes, a job that’ll please her dad, and an apartment. The first two points are negotiable. So basically, she’s looking for any guy with a good job and an apartment. “what about the lightning bolt?” I ask her. “Lightning bolts don’t pay the bills,” she replies.

And perhaps the ‘Chinese girl’ way of finding a soul mate makes good sense. In the book ‘Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough’, 40-something single mother Laurie Gottlieb discusses how if she could go back in time to her twenties she wouldn’t waste so much time searching for ‘the one’. “When we’re holding out for deep, romantic love, we have the fantasy that this level of passionate intensity will make us happier – but marrying Mr Good Enough might be an equally viable option, especially if you’re looking for a stable, reliable, life companion.” She goes on to say “marriage isn’t about cosmic connection – it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.”

So the question is…should we settle for less than Mr or Ms Perfect?

For women this has always been the more pressing issue; we can’t avoid the fact that our eggs have a shelf life, and as we veer into our 30’s, having a family becomes a task thrust upon us not only by society, but by our own hopes and longing. Behind the high-flying careers, feminism, and equality, there’s no escaping the fact that a majority of us just want to fall in love and raise a happy family. It’s in our nature.

Researchers have found that like Chinese women, more and more western women are also giving up their hunt for Mr. Perfect as the ticks of their biological clocks grow louder. A study of 2,000 women revealed that more than one in ten married women admit they settled for a partner purely because their maternal urge was so strong. Of those, 15 per cent said they are glad they 'made do' with their other half, but 60 per cent said they wished they had persevered and waited to find Mr. Right.

As I cling onto the last few years of my twenties, I plan to allow myself to hang on to the idea of a soul mate for a little while longer. I think it was someone on the TV show Ally McBeal that said “Sometimes when you hold out for everything, you walk away with nothing.” So finding that ‘perfect’ someone means being flexible with your high standards. As my Chinese friend said, “what’s the point in looking for a man with a good body and good hair, when he’s just going to end up fat and bald like the rest of them?”

My soul mate doesn’t have to have a full head of hair, a car, or big eyes; but I’ll know I’ve met ‘the one’ when he says to me, “you’re not perfect my darling, but you’re perfect for me.”