The Myth of "The One": Is There Really Just One Person Out There for You? | Girls Chase

The Myth of "The One": Is There Really Just One Person Out There for You?

Chase Amante

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Chase Amante's picture

only one the one
The myth of only one The One out there for you comes from hormones and Hollywood. The truth is, there is more than one soul mate for you.

In my article on how women express interest, Bruhaha asked:

"Hey Chase, of recent I was in a heated debate with a religious friend of mine. He holds the view that there is only one girl for every guy in this world and vice versa. I argued that if that were the case, then every widower that remarries is doing a great injustice to the rest of his fellows. This is b'se he would be encroaching on other people's ones. And that the church should actually publicly denounce the holding of such ceremonies in order to be considerate to the rest of the population so that they can have a perfect shot at their ones also. That's when it struck me that you have never actually covered this issue before. I hope sometime to come, when you feel like it, it would really be cool to have your perspective on this issue. I would suggest you entitle it "Debunking the myth of the One", if you don't mind of course. Carpet diem!"

And he's right, I haven't addressed it on here, at least not in article form. I've discussed it a bit in comments over the years... but no standalone article on the subject.

So let's get one up.

Three things we should talk about with 'soul mates' and 'The One':

  1. Are there people you match better with than others?
  2. Is there only one truly perfect match?
  3. Are soul mates drawn toward each other?

All are interesting questions. We'll explore all today.

Comments

Kevin Bogard's picture

Great article!

Now tell us more about your views on the spiritual aspect of this subject :p

-Kev

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Kevin-

Haha, sure.

When I've studied Christianity, Buddhism, Spiritism, ancient religions, and near-death experiences, they all seem to have a few common threads. One of them is that life is about growth. Sometimes that growth is about expiation of sins (whether past bad karma or original sin). Sometimes it is about cultivating love and compassion for others. Sometimes it is about removing oneself from worldly desires. Usually it's actually all three.

It seems to me we are each drawn to those who will help us best achieve what we're here to achieve. If you're here to learn a hard lesson, you're drawn to people who will teach it to you until you've internalized that lesson. If you're here to make some impact on the world, you're drawn to people who will support that mission and help ready you for it in one way or another.

And, likewise, just as they are helping you work through or develop whatever you're here to work through or develop, you are also helping them do the same.

All a "soul mate" is to me in that sense is someone who is particularly well suited to help you down the road you need to journey down... and whom you are particularly well suited to help in turn.

Whether there is some supernatural element in how that works or not, I cannot say. But there certainly is something beyond the superficial.

Chase

Anonym's picture

Hi Chase,

thanks for an interesting article. While I appreciate how much you can apply scientific thinking in this field, I wonder why you even consider validity of spiritual explanations (including astrology) in the issue of soul mate, since in some of your previous articles you actually explained principles that may explain soul mate issue as well (see articles "Dating Success is Probability, Not Cause and Effect" and "How many Attraction Factors are There? Infinite"). The point is that everyone has some genetics, personality, values, worldview, identity, lifestyle, social and cultural background, immediate life situation,emotional and sexual needs and desires etc. and preferences of those features in other people, in this case the opposite sex. There is some statistical distribution of all features in the world population and some combinations of both features and preferences are more likely than others. Statistically there should be more good fitting partners for everyone, though the more someone's features/preferences differ from what the opposite sex tend to look for/offer, the harder it is to find a great fit for him/her. Finding the perfect fit may feel exceptional like it is a fate which make sense from the relationship perspective since it makes people more motivated to maintain it (maybe evolutionary biology/psychology?), but analytically there is no reason to give up the probabilistic perspective that works well in other cases and go for spiritual explanations which are speculative and arbitrary in essence. There are so many spiritual traditions that you can pick whatever concept and explanation you want to believe, but as you wrote in many of your articles about mental models, mindsets, empiricism or even critic of political correctness, our worldview should be based on reality, because things do not work some way just because we want them to work this way. There is no reason approach religion and spirituality in a different way.

Thanks

Anonym

Hector Castillo's picture

Hmm...

You start with the premise that am materialistic model is the default model that needs to be debunked before moving onto spiritual/religious models. There is no burden upon anyone to hold a materialistic model as the default model and only leave it behind when it doesn't work.  

" but analytically there is no reason to give up the probabilistic perspective that works well in other cases and go for spiritual explanations which are speculative and arbitrary in essence."

Of course there is.

- As explained above, there's no reason to follow one model because it works for one area or many areas. Hume demonstrated that fallacy long ago. 

- Secondly, there is no science out there that can measure what is being discussed in this article, so regarding this topic, a materialistic model should be abandoned via your criteria. Pheromones, oxytocin, genetic diversity - all of these could explain why certain people are attracted to others, but there's no metric for it. It's just a description, not an accurate explanation for WHY it happens. There's no double-blind study of "this person released 2.5 grams of oxytocin for this person and these neurons went wild, so therefore the attraction between these two people is a 7/10" that is extensive enough to provide a bulletproof framework.

"our worldview should be based on reality,"

What is reality? Never met anyone who could answer that question.

Hector

Anonym's picture

Hi Hector,

thanks for your reply. I do not give you formal or exhaustive definition of reality, but my working understanding is that real is what exists. Nobody can deny existence of material, physical world which has its own dynamics. People also have some interpretations of the world, worldviews, identities etc, which content may or may not be real, but if you want to do something with other people, you need to take their existence in account. But there is no consensus and no evidence about existence of spiritual or religious forces, they are based on faith. While people can decide to pick whatever default model they want, it makes more sense to start with model based on something that no doubt exists. To make spiritual/religious model competitive to the material model, the existence of spiritual/religious forces (f.e. God) needs to be proven in the first place.

It is truth that if some model work in one area it does not imply it would work in another area. It may or it may not. What model work in what area is empirical question, but if some model work in many similar areas, it should not be rejected without valid reasons just because someone like another model more. However, in the case of „soul mate“ we are talking about different case in the same area. Soul mate is just a person you have better connection and higher level of compatibility than with other people you usually have relationships. Since compatibility is super high, there is almost no friction and needs of both are better satisfied so it feels better and more exceptional. But if probabilistic approach work on attraction between people with lower compatibility, there is no reason to assume it would not work in cases of higher compatibility.

We have no attraction mechanism like you described, but that is not reason to abandon materialistic model. Science is not static. We can only say that at the current level of knowledge we do not have accurate explanation or metrics. But in history of science you can find many examples that what at some point seemed to be unexplainable by science, was explained later when science made progress. No doubt there will be scientific progress in the future. Whether it will be enough to have this kind of mechanism, we will see. If we have some descriptions, like you wrote, it is the first step towards developing explanation. The topic is either underresearched or too complex and difficult to explore at the current level of knowledge. If the description of attraction you mentioned is valid (as you seem to agree), then that implies its essence is materialist or at least unexplainable without considering the material aspect. Anyway, spiritual or religious explanation fails even on the description level (see the first paragraph).

Anonym

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Anonym-

I realize the immaterial is not for everyone. I usually leave it alone for that reason.

However, I'm in the bin of folks who believes mankind has only scratched at the surface of existence. We are a tiny, ignorant race with a short history clinging to a small rock spinning through space, all too often thinking we've figured out everything because we've had science a few hundred years. If we have discovered 1% of 1% of what there is to know about existence, I'd be surprised. I suspect there's much more to our realities than what we can prove with existing science.

That said... I am also of the mind that our universe is logically consistent. Anything that occurs in the universe has a matching material explanation. Any time I hear someone say "This can only be explained by the supernatural" I consider that a cheat. Probably this is someone who lacks enough imagination or education to conjure up a material explanation for the thing in question.

So yes, absolutely -- anything that occurs in existence can also be fully explained within the laws of nature. That is my stance.

I also just happen to be of the mind that those laws of nature are in service to a higher purpose; that there is a dual cause of all events: the physical cause (the one we can see and prove experimentally), and the metaphysical one (the one we cannot see and cannot prove).

Chase

sebastian's picture

Hi Chase,

thanks for this article, I especially liked the part where you talk about making plans with your girlfriend vs. being spontaneous. I'm more of a spontaneous type while my current girlfriend likes to have everything planned out, so that was an eye-opener.

I, too, would be interested in your spiritual views. I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea (like the previous commenter), but I usually find your writings inspiring and insightful so I'd love to read your thoughts on the matter.

Cheers!

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Sebastian-

Yes, those personality clashes get more and more interesting as you get into them. You realize different people have these very different ways of operating... something that feels good for you rubs her the wrong way, and vice versa. Many couple fights are about clashes like this (often with both sides assuming the other side operates the same was as themselves, and thinking the other side is just being obstinate or difficult).

For my views, check two comments up (also the reply to Anonym too)!

Chase

Morra's picture

Hey Chase, I'd like to subscribe for OD & TDA. Am wondering though (1) Are the videos downloadable? (2) If the course is downloadable, what is the total capacity of the whole 50 hr course? 70 GB perhaps?

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Morra-

Cheers man. I hope you enjoy the course (should you pick it up)!

We don't have a download function on the site; however, there are browser extensions you can install that allow you to download video files. These work fine with OD/TDA. Just search for "[your browser] download video plugin."

Total capacity -- we used compressed versions of the video files (same compression as 720p movie torrents online), for speed/load time reasons. The compressed versions I think average around 600 MB, and there are around 50 videos total, so you'd be looking at about 30 GB.

Chase

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