After every heartbreak, there’s always someone there to reassure you, whether it be a close friend, parent, whoever. There’s also a good chance that maybe you’ll hear one of these things: “You’re one step closer to finding the one,” “You’ll eventually find someone who’s right for you,” or “There are a lot of fish in the sea.” Even though you know it’s cliche, it gives you comfort knowing that your heartache will lead to something better, that it’ll probably lead you to your soulmate. But in reality, you won’t ever find the one.

Ever since childhood, we’ve been conditioned to think that one day, we’ll find that special someone and we’ll get married and have kids. But life is a little more complicated than that. Instead we go about our lives searching, not for the one, but someone we consider good enough. We settle for people who, although they may not be our fairy tale come true, we decide that we want to work things out with because in our minds, they are good enough and in essence, are worth it because of that.

Essentially this is how all good, lasting relationships work: deciding that you want to stay around and work your problems out with that someone instead of leaving to find “the one.” We decide to love someone despite their flaws and seeing them at their worst because when it boils down to it, love is a choice. Feelings are fickle. One minute someone would ache to be with you and the next, they wouldn’t want anything to do with you. You could show someone the world and all the love you have to offer and they can decide that they didn’t want it. If you were to think that this person were your soulmate, it will only lead to heartbreak. To chase after someone for so long and not to just give up, it’s tiring to beat a dead horse like that. There are some things that you’ll hopefully come to understand, which is to know when to give up. There’s a fine line between love and infatuation. Love has to go both ways. Unfortunate, but we move on with “what ifs” and the wonder from these lost “lovers.” Sometimes we do this with the thought that we are leaving a soulmate and hoping that one day, we’ll cross paths again. But that won’t happen.

Today, a majority of Americans believe in the idea of a soulmate. There was a study done by Raymond Knee, where he grouped people by what they believed. Either “destiny beliefs,” meaning that these people believed that there is a specific person they are destined to be with, or “growth beliefs,” meaning they believed that relationships progress slowly and they grow to fit together. Turns out that those who fell into the destiny category were more likely to break up, give up, and have difficult relationships. Those who believed in soulmates, will spend more time looking for that one rather than cultivating their existing relationships. In turn, they’ll have a decreased motivation to make a relationship work. While those who believed in growth, instead, last longer in relationships because they aren’t looking for that one. They are focusing on the person they are with and ask themselves how they can better themselves and how they can improve their relationship with that person they are with.

Whether you believe in soulmates or not, you’ll go through life meeting different people and experiencing new things. Maybe one day you’ll find someone you can consider a soulmate, maybe not. Nothing is certain, but soulmates don’t always have to be a lover either. It could be a friend, pet, relative, whatever. Someone you connect to and you feel safe with and at home with. Having said that, we all have some type of soulmate. You don’t need to find something you probably already have.