call me a hopeless romantic, but that is so sweet!!
i don’t know whether or not i believe in soulmates. i do believe that everybody is able to feel love towards everyone else in this world. as in, on some level, you can be that close to every single person. sometimes it needs work, and maybe you think that makes it invalid, but it is possible. i know that sounds like true tree-hugging hippy crap.
i think i’d like to believe in soulmates.
People change too much for there to be soulmates. It would involve you both changing thoughts at the same time. Then if everyone had one there would be only half the amount of individuals out there. This is looking at it in an annoying logical point of view though. I guess I’ll stop now.
It’s ok cba1067950, trust me women can think logically, but don’t try to explain them. It’ll just get you in more trouble. lol, thanx clarice… 
the ancient greeks believed that the insert name of species here - i can’t remember were so jealous of humanities perfection that they took everybody and split them up, and that there was one person out there who would complete you. i think that’s lovely.
So lovely to you is searching 8 billion people for completion? I mean I’d like the idea better if say the girl that completed me lived atmost a couple blocks away but jeez now I might actually have to look for someone I like.
I don’t want to think that there is no such thing as a soulmate. What’s the use of looking for someone, or dating if there’s not? Is everyone looking to get their hearts broken these days, or what? I believe there is such a thing, but that having one would take a serious commitment to working through as many obsticles that could possibly pop up.
I think soulmate is a word conjured up by hopeless romantics to personify their wishful belief that there is someone in the world who is their perfect match and who will put an end to all their problems. It then mutated into common usage so that any old tom dick and harry says “oh she’s my soulmate” after two weeks of contact. Soulmate is just a word to describe someone you get on with well. Calling them a soulmate doesn’t disclude them from treating you like shit, stabbing you in the back and maybe at one point, leaving you completely.
People who believe in soulmates spend more time discussing whether they exist than they do going out to find them.
That’s soooo not true Ben.
Do you honestly believe that there isnt someone out there who just is that missing piece from your life? The person that you just instantly click with.??
You know you are… You cant deny your hormonal instinct for want of love. 
Regardless of time frame, two weeks, a day … a year, 5 years… the person can still be your soulmate.
The only problem is that the word is just so overused and used loosely that people nowadays are either bad judge of characters or just want to love so badly that the next person they come in contact with is their soulmate .
I’m a believer and you know YOU ARE TOO.
xxoooxxx
I remember very well the January snowstorm that gave us a day off of school. My buddy and I decided to go ice-skating. As I was putting on my skates I looked up to see a girl skating by. Little pink fluttery hearts cascaded cartoon-like out of my head, despite the fact that I knew she’d never give me the time of day. As it turns out she was willing to give me the time of all her days.
I know how stupid this sounds. I know I’m supposed to be complaining about my wife like the other guys down at the gym. I know no one wants to hear about my eternal love. I’m supposed to be cynically biding my time until the inevitable divorce occurs. Or else we’re supposed to stay together, to soldier on together like zombies for the sake of the kids. After a quarter of a century I’m supposed to be sick of the sight of her. I know this is how it’s supposed to be, only it isn’t how it is.
She flew away last week to visit her parents. I found myself the other night with my chin on the dresser looking at a picture of her. It’s an empty house and an empty life without her. My sister told us that soon after we were settled in our marriage we’d feel that something was missing, and that would be the signal to have a child. We waited for the missing feeling, but it never came. So be it.
Again, I apologize if my story might be making you ill. I know it’s not supposed to be this way. I’m supposed to be be lusting away for younger women. What’s wrong with me?
I don’t have any great insight as to why I’ve been so lucky when I’ve seen so many of my friends and family fail in love. The world is so terribly complex. People are even more complex. Yet here I am telling you that for me it all comes down to just abandoning oneself to one pure hearted woman.
I wake up some mornings with her head on my chest. Occasionally there’s a morning dove down in the garden. She likes to coo softly along with it. I wake up with this soft vibration filling my chest and look down to see her waist length braided hair lying across me. She knows who I am. She knows me far better than I know myself, and yet this is how she prefers to return to life in the morning. My greatest hope is that the last thing I should see on this earth are her hazel eyes and loving smile. I would go easily to sleep for an infinity. Is love supposed to be like this? I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like. I only know what it is like.
Michael
AWWWWWWWWWWWWW… sorry I had to do it before someone else did. Not that I don’t admire what you have because I do but it’s something that makes me feel better when I turn things like this into a competition and win. 
I’m so tired…
Well I’d love someone more if I was atleast a decent match with them if I knew that the chances of finding someone that completed me were slim to none. My opinion anyway. I’d value something more if my chances of finding it were less.
Sorry I don’t mean to attack you but I just so happen to disagree with you. Why would you want a relationship that you consider work? To me that seems destined to destroy itself.
Polemarchus,
your life is truly a gift. Many believe their lives to be torment, always greedy for more, never satisfied even with the greatest riches in the world. From what I have read about you from you previous posts and agglomerating them all, including the one above, I have come to realize that there is a reason things work out for those who dare to believe. I had this realization for many years, but had only myself to compare it too. My theory is that, a truly good person has good things happen to them. It is like Plato’s belief, that a truly virtuous person will naturally be good at all things. It is not to be taken in the general context in which it is written, I wish not to explain but leave the readers to draw their own conclusions. Many will confuse this with the notion of those people in school that do not bother anyone but the jocks always bother them. To me, these people are not virtuous or good (necessarily). Some of those people who don’t do anything bad is only because they don’t dare to do it because of what the bigger and stronger would do to them. Once given a chance, this person being bigger and stronger would do the same things in the bully’s circumstances or even worse.
You see, the chances of you and your wife mixing so well is a one in a million chance (under-exagerating). What about the chances of both of you not wanting kids, that’s yet another one in a million chance, but there is also the way you live, which as I have stated before would not be something too many would be happy with given the current possible amenities. Yet the both of you are okay living in the conditions that you do, that is once again a one in a million chance. Hence, why I say that your life is a gift.
You inspire and bring confidence to my heart Polemarchus. I believe my title of ‘Magnanimous’ is better suited to you, especially lately. My anger and frustration have been getting the better of me for the last few months; this is not like me, I was never like that. I am working on fixing it.
I wish to ask you, did you know from the moment you spoke or your eyes met with hers? After the time you had the thought that she would not give you the time of day. I always love to hear stories of how couples met and got together, I wish not to pry, and will completely understand if you wish not to share; especially on a message board, but I could not resist asking.
What’s your take?
Dearest Polemarchus,
It’s guys like you I want to get me pregnant. 
My friend and I were just in awe with what you wrote.
You know, not to go on a tangent, Girls are more attracted to guys like you who show they can commit to one single individual…wow.
and you’re a rare commodity.
so if things dont work out between you and your wife, I’m always here , “baby”
Your number 1 heifer,
Natsilicious
natty, natty, natty,
being awestruck has made you foolish and careless. you said you are attracted to people who commit to one individual. You then suggest that if Polemarchus were to break with his wife (rather a crass comment given the situation) he should come and find you. But then he wouldn’t be committed to one individual thus negating the reason for him to come and look for you.
women will come and go, but logic is true forever. beautiful.
Ben, Ben Ben
logics only work if you have the facts correct, Hun
I said IF he ever broke up with his wife, he could come a runnin’ to me!
Men are like…Lava lamps.
Fun to look at, but not all that bright
-natty
Magius,
If I can get more than a moment free in the next day I’ll PM you.
Hey Natty,
Goethe wrote in his Elective Affinities:
If you only love one person with all your heart, everybody seems lovable.
You’re a sweetheart, Natty!
Hi Ben,
Do you remember when Shakespeare’s Romeo cried?
Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet.
And then we have Keat’s well known complaint in his Lamia:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
And now, quite serious again, I wanted to mention that I find the passions of life and philosophy to be closely related. By chance, have you read Robert Solomon’s, The Passions; Emotions and the Meaning of Life? Solomon; a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, writes:
“Our passions have been too long relegated to mere footnotes in philosophy and parentheses in psychology, as if they were intrusions and interruptions-sometimes welcome distractions but usually embarrassing if not treacherous subversions of lives that ought to be conceived in “higher” terms. Our passions constitute our lives. It’s our passions and our passions alone, that provide our lives with meaning.”
Romeo needn’t have worried. He could be passionate about his Juliet and his Philosophy. Ben, I’d bet you are as passionate about philosophy as I am. The very name “philosophy” already tells us this thing is about a passion. In my case, philosophy is also romantic. No, of course not candles and soft music romantic; it’s more, to freeze while shaving in the morning when you catch your eyes staring back into your eyes. I’ve stood for long moments with my razor suspended, until the chill in my spine has subsided.
I’m taking a chance here because I’ve never asked another person about this. Maybe everyone already does it, or maybe I’m just plain weird. Whatever the case, I would ask you, anyone actually, to try it at least once. Yes, I know people look at “themselves” in the mirror all the time. But I suspect most people are only asking, “What do I look like to other people?” I’m asking you to pick out your eyes in the mirror, look directly into yourself and ask, “What do I look like to myself?”, or at least, “Do I know you?”
Sartre wrote, "An emotion is a transformation of the world." This is the context of my romanticism. Philosophy is all about my most intense emotions: my place in the world, my relationship with others,…my introspective self. These reasoned emotions transform my world. Poor Keats, he seems to have missed out on the charms of philosophy.
Well, I’ll be merciful and stop now, I don’t want to hijack a perfectly good thread. I just wanted to mention that for me, the passion for life and for philosophy are close cousins.
Michael
rass. 
that was some deep shit.
I particularly liked
wow.
U’re worthy of your own topic.
[size=59](and no I’m not hitting on the married man) 
[/size]
Hey Magius,
I wrote this as a second PM to you, but after I’d finished I couldn’t think of a valid reason why it had to be a PM.
I wanted to answer your question about love at first sight. I also want to say a few words about the prospect of enduring love.
When I first saw her all I appreciated was her beauty. After I had talked to her for a while I realized she was probably a nice person. Only after a year of dating did I realize that she was far more than just a nice person. She was an incredible person.
Does one discover love, or does one create it? My love wasn’t something “out there” just waiting for the right woman to come along. Simon Blackburn noted similarly that there are no dents “out there” waiting for a the right tin-can to appear in. I’m the author of my romance. It has a beginning and an end, but I choose what to write in-between. It can be an ecstacy or a misery; sky rockets or hand grenades. It’s my choice.
So, once upon a time we fell in love. Big deal, right? It’s improbable that two people out of thousands just so happen to fall in love, still, we know it happens all the time. The cynics remind us that we’ve seen it all before; love begins with a bang and ends with a whimper…or worse. I agree. Though most people would prefer that love is enduring, the stark fact is that even the most passionate love is ephemeral. Love’s shelf-life falls somewhere between that of a pumpkin and a German car.
Neither my wife nor I are the same people we were when we married. People change. People should change! We talk of our hopes for the future, but we often forget that for our dreams to come true requires change in our lives.
One might wonder how anyone knows in their mid-twenties how they are going to feel about the other person by the time they reach their mid-forties. But think how much less certain is the proposition that we shall both continue to love the people we will become.
Love passes and people change. You’ve no choice but to let love run it’s course. But at some point before the the last spark sputters away you can do a remarkable thing. You can use the change in both of you to create a new love. You can discover new reasons to love the person you’ve known for twenty five years when you notice that this is not the same person you’ve known for twenty five years. In short, you embrace the change in each other.
Mignon McLaughlin supposedly made this observation:
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times,
always with the same person.”
This turns out to be a wonderful thing! It’s as if each blossom on the same rose bush were of a different color and fragrance. Before I tire of the sight of a single blossom two more have opened. A mathematican could spend an entire career immersed only in the study of ellipses. How could I ever tire of finding new ways to love a woman who never stops changing; whose each new blossom is unique?
Michael
Very nicely put. That was almost like reading a book. Wooow… that was fun reading that post.
Polemarchus stated:
I think the stages you mention are the norm, meaning that is the way it should happen. I always think of attraction as a magnet, it’s what get’s you to the person when you first meet them. Talking is what keeps you with the person for a long time (or sex, but then the relationship is based on infatuation), but living through many experiences along side the person does one come to realize that life is best lived with a partner; which enhances their experiences and the joy for life.
Polemarchus eloquently stated:
Thank you, this made me laugh.
Polemarchus stated:
So true. I only wish to add that I think people should have dreams that incorporate or allow change, I believe they would find it much easier for their dreams to come true.
Polemarchus stated:
That was almost arcane. The concept of love for oneself, for most people I know, appears non-existent or only as a glass window with a nice painting on it but nothing behind it. I always associate a person self image to be responsible for their responses towards others. Those who love themselves act in a kind, caring, and congenial manner towards others. While those who don’t love themselves for who they are but love what they do for themselves (ie. make-up, beautiful cars, clothing, jewellry, etc.) project their inner most problems with themselves onto others. Creating a problem before there really is one.
Polemarchus stated:
Max Ehrmann, my favorite poet states in what is my favorite of his poems…“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”
What’s your take?
i beleive ummmm yeah i beleive, but i wouldn’t say perfect compatability…