Church bells may be ringing in the ears of many when they think of the idea of their soulmate. Others may believe that a soulmate is all banter. The common conception from high schoolers when they consider what a soulmate may be is an individual that is romantically involved with them. Where this may be true, it is not always the case, for there is a difference between a life partner and a soulmate. 

Out of a poll of 115 students, 39% said they believe that a soulmate must have romantic involvement in high school whereas 61% said they do not believe a soulmate must have romantic involvement. These statistics show how a greater majority of students feel as if romance does not need to be a characteristic of a soulmate. Due to this, the point of a soulmate not needing to have a  romantic involvement within a high schooler’s life justifies why that point is accurate. 

To understand what a soulmate truly is, the dictionary definition from Dictionary.com must be squashed. 

As stated on the website, a soulmate is, “A person with whom one has a strong affinity, shared values and tastes, and often a romantic bond.” 

This definition mentions that there is “often a romantic bond” when it comes to soulmates, which would tell those who believe that soulmates must have romantic involvement are not directly accurate.  

Sophomore Jasmyn Williams believes that  “a soulmate is someone who connects to you on a deeper level of understanding and [the] unconditional love that them [sic] and yourself know is never going to be gone on both sides of the relationship.” 

Love is an important characteristic of a soulmate to demonstrate. Williams brings up the word love and she mentions the importance of the connection between love and a soulmate: it is evident that love is a common idea that high schoolers associate with soulmates. 

To further understand what a soulmate could be, Aletheia Luna, a spiritual leader who’s found that her purpose is to help humans better understand themselves, states that “soulmates are your mirrors. They reflect back to you your own flaws, insecurities, dreams, and strengths to help you grow to the fullest. You can rely on them, to be honest with you, completely honest, even to the point of not sparing your feelings because they care about you that much.”

Soulmates contain specific characteristics which make up the soulmate definition. The certain characteristics of a soulmate allow all people including high schoolers to more easily identify their soulmate since they understand the characteristics that make up these people. This characteristic of a soulmate could be used to help students figure out if they have met their soulmate in high school. 

Soulmates can contain many different character traits within these relationships. Luna mentions that “soulmates are people that could be your confidants, personal teachers, and will love you unconditionally. Soulmates will know you better than you know yourself; they’re like your best friends and have a feeling about them that is very ‘familiar’.” 

Junior Baileigh Friesen defines a soulmate as, “someone you could never get tired of. Someone who makes you genuinely happy.”

Friesen’s personal definition gives insight into what specific characteristics she believes a soulmate must-have. It is helpful for high schoolers to understand what character traits would make up their soulmate in order to identify that person. 

Junior Sara Clifford adds to this point, “I don’t think a soulmate has to be someone you are romantically involved with. I feel like I have people who I really connect with who are close to [meeting the requirements of] soulmates, yet I’m not romantically involved with them. I think a soulmate could be anyone, like a friend or someone you meet once and never again.”

Clifford’s quote brings up the idea of the difference between a life partner and a soulmate, which gives the reason as to why a soulmate does not have to be an individual with whom a high schooler may be romantically involved. 

According to Katherine Hurst, a woman who runs the world’s largest Law of Attraction community, a guide for people to try to better their minds in order to live well off, mentions, “a life partner is someone trustworthy and dependable with whom you spend significant time, while a soulmate is a person who arrives in your life specifically to enrich it, encourage your development and push you to grow into a higher state of consciousness.”

A soulmate has the ability to come in many different forms within each high schooler’s life. The form that this person takes could be one of a father, mother, best friend, sibling or another form. 

A soulmate is a curious idea that is hard to define completely, especially in high school. These people who are considered soulmates come through all different relationships in a high schooler’s life, and while one can have a soulmate based on romance, church bells do not always have to be ringing for someone to consider another as a soulmate.