I Wasn’t Looking For My Soul Mate, I Was Actually Looking For My Carbon Copy

I had an inner voice that said “this is not him” when I looked into anyone’s eyes.

I am forever alone, but to understand my story of loneliness, you have to forget all the soul mate clichés you know. The “ideal person” concept in my head always bothered me. Because I was actually looking for my carbon copy, not a partner. But I wasn’t the culprit here. I can’t even experience short-term “palpitations” when I go out and use public transport. Because every person I look at, I have an inner voice that says “this is not him”. According to my inner voice, I have had someone whom I feel is “the one” since the beginning of my life.

I don’t know who he is, but my inner voice knows very well. What separates this feeling from an ordinary “Prince Charming” story is that I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone until now. and I am 28 years old. My heart and my whole soul belong to someone I don’t really know right now. And even if I wanted to, I can’t look at anyone romantically anymore. It’s so cliche, but I can’t stop myself. And I surrounded this feeling with the label “I don’t care”. No one may be looking for “the one” but that’s what I live for. I even suspend my fear of being alone forever because now I know what I want.

When I saw this headline in an article on vice, I was reacquainted with that long-lived (but hoped to have resolved) feeling. I was struck in the face again by the presence of that person who would come into my life and complete me in a transparent way. I thought about how possible it was to attract such a person, as I had done for a long time. Although I’m not always proud of my old-fashioned crush, admitting that I hate casual sex and dating over the years has brought me a different social life. But I have to admit that it was the hardest thing for me to always feel “whole” in the absence of this person.

I also had some emotional behaviors that I could never stand. Although I am quite a romantic person, the feeling of falling in love with someone was eating away at me. I don’t know why I avoided falling in love. Because all my life I let the feeling of love consume me. When I couldn’t deal with my real character, I chose a few fictional characters and tried to be like them. But none of them helped me become an authentic bensu. I found in Rory Gilmore that for a while she was immersed in books and writing. I liked how Rory was immersed in their intense first love. It didn’t seem to have much to do with hook-up culture either. But it was still not “me”. It couldn’t have been.

I was already familiar with Park Eun bin, who is now in everyone’s frame with the extraordinary attorney woo drama, years ago. Because she made me feel less awkward and lonely with her character Song Ji-won in Hello my twenties. Song ji-won, the character played by Eun bin, was a young girl in college who had never had a boyfriend yet.

She wanted to fall in love, but she thought no one found her attractive. She was a friendly and funny friend to everyone. Even though Ji-won’s character felt good to me, who still didn’t have a boyfriend in her senior year of college, something was still missing. Because I wasn’t as fun and extroverted as Ji Won.

Until the age of 24, I felt as if I had accidentally fallen into the world. Everything that should not be in a person seemed to be gathered in me. I had a very sensitive personality type known as HSP. I’m also an introverted empath. This made me feel someone’s feelings as if they were my own, even if I didn’t want to. As someone who lives on such a thorn, I didn’t want to flirt with anyone. It was always difficult for me to take on this emotional responsibility. If I overcame one challenge, the other would attack me, and I was tired of living in constant attack.

When I turned 27, the only thing that changed was to make peace with my feelings a little more. I accepted that I wouldn’t be able to have random flirtations and sexual relations like my peers. Searching for another reflection of my body, which is a human being as small as a grain of dust among 7 billion people, sounded extremely impossible to me. I was actually looking for my carbon copy, not a partner. Yes, that means forgetting all the soul mate stereotypes you know.

I still have a broad longing for the concept of “the one”. I can’t even experience short-term “palpitations” when I go out and use public transport. Because whoever I look at, a voice inside me says, “This is not him”. So when I asked who he was. “Away,” he replies. It’s far away… This voice continues its sharp conversations with me, saying, “You have to accept your feelings first and love yourself”. To be frank, until a few years ago, I couldn’t understand the cliché “loving yourself” thing at all. But long after the painful days when I stopped living in love with someone all the time, I realized that the person I should have loved in the first place was myself.

I saw the paradox of running away from oneself very clearly in “Everything I know about love” that I finished the other day. The main character of the series, Maggie, trying to escape from the emptiness she had accumulated for many years brought interactions that she never wanted.

It was as if acting without thinking and then, when she woke up in the morning, to bear the heavy price of her every action, became one with her. Even if she got her dream job, she couldn’t find herself. It was also seen that she did not grow up with a great lack of love. Her problem was that she obviously believed she couldn’t be loved the way she was. All those fake cool acts that she got into so people would like her made her lose control.

I know that 80% of our lives are governed by our unconscious emotions, the reason for which we can no longer understand. Maggie’s comforting herself with casual sex is no different than my constant falling in love to escape my feelings. Because in both situations lies insecurity. Clinging to sex simply because you’re afraid someone won’t like you goes the same way as falling in love with fictional characters to escape genuine relationships. This is part of an anxious or avoidant attachment.

My heart and my whole soul belong to someone I don’t really know right now. And I can’t look at anyone romantically anymore even if I wanted to

That’s what always made me feel like a freak. I still feel a bit like that. And that’s where we get to the point where everything gets blurry inside my head. How can I feel so clearly the presence of that person that all my love and body feel safe with? And I guess what really scares me is that I won’t be attracted to anyone other than this person. I say scary because I feel extremely comfortable not really needing a relationship. On the other hand, I feel comfortable because in this big world, only my heart gets strength and I know that my heart will not deceive me.

This article was published in the Substack newsletter, Traditional Lover. Click to read the full article in my newsletter.

Hi, I’m Bensu. I write about mind, hard feelings and self-love. If you enjoyed my articles about surpassing yourself and achieving your dreams, you can start your medium subscription from this link: