To my future lover,

I don't believe in soulmates.

Yes, you read that correctly. This may come as a surprise to you as you will undoubtedly know me to be a head-over-heels, impossibly hopeful, hopeless romantic. But--hear me out--I'm not as big a cynic as you may think.

When I was younger, I had an unhealthy obsession with the idea of soulmates. What a charming thought it is that two individuals are made and molded specifically to fit the other and must traverse all corners of the Earth to find that one true match. A sucker for fanciful imaginings that supported this dreamy outlook, I agreed whole-heartedly with this quote from Plato's "The Symposium":

"According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves."

A beautiful conjecture, I'll say that much. As time has gone along, however, I have loved and lost and loved again. And with every heartbreak and newfound affection, I've found this sentiment to be an absolute untruth for a multitude of reasons.

First off, you shouldn't be searching for your other half because you are not merely a half.

That's the problem with the idea of soulmates--it assumes that every individual is a puzzle piece of sorts, a mere fraction or fragment of the whole. This is wildly incorrect. Romantic love is not required to be complete. And that's the trouble with puzzle pieces--there can be multiple that fit an unfilled space.

Secondly, I think there is a fatal flaw with the way in which love is described. When we tell our grandchildren our love story, I don't want to be telling them how we fell in love. I don't buy that. The language utilized is just not accurate in painting a true portrayal.

You see, love is not a passive verb.

Love is not something that just happens to an individual; it's an action verb. To be an object of one's affection is not love at all; in real love, there are no senders or receivers--only active participants.

Being an active participant in love, you have a say. You have a choice in love, who you love and to what degree. Additionally, I feel that, with the idea of soulmates, there's an implicit association that the work is done once you find that one person; after all, if we were meant to be, finding one another would be the hardest part of the battle. That's a poor outlook on love, though.

Love is not a destination; it's a journey. It is not about finding the right partner, but being the right partner.

Being. Never forget that love is present tense, active voice.

Love is something honed. It is something worked on and cultivated, continuously reprocessed and redefined. There are 7.4 billion people wandering about on this floating rock of ours. Our love will be significant because of this:

I will have chosen you. Over all the rest, I will have chosen you. And you will have done the same.

To me, saying that is so much more profound than stating, "I've spent my whole life searching for you." It means that I want to love you. I want to love you actively and continually.

I do not believe anyone's love to be written in the stars. Rather, it is etched by lovers. There are eraser marks and smudges, crossing-outs and notes in the margins. Love is a thing incessantly rewritten, renewed and retouched. But it is a ceaseless and enduring process, ever in the present tense, a collaborative effort not written by fate or the gods, but by those who chose the other's face out from the crowd.

I know that you are not the only one in the world for me. Yet the love that you and I will share will be significant because I will choose to see the entire world in you.

So when I fall in love, I'll realize that it's a big deal not because we were resigned to fate, but because we chose one another. And, magically, our choices will have aligned and we will call it love.

Now and forever,

Still a hopeless romantic