Waiting For Your Soul Mate?

Dr. Phil speaks with his guest, Mark, a 30-year-old virgin, about the concept of a “soul mate” and searching for the perfect partner. If you’re still searching for your perfect mate, Dr. Phil has advice:

What is a soul mate? If your definition of a soul mate is this perfect person who, as soon as you see him/her, you instantly know he/she is the one, you may be searching for someone who doesn’t exist. Relationships are nurtured and grown. They are not instantaneous. There may be wonderful matches out there for you, but you’ve passed them by because you were expecting fireworks or the instant realization that you've met “the one” the second you saw him/her.

If you’re searching for your match, don’t look for someone who is a 100 percent perfect fit. If that’s whom you’re looking for, you may never find him/her. Instead, consider the person who is an 80 percent fit. If the remaining 20 percent are not deal-breakers — alcohol or drug addiction, abuse, etc. — you will grow that 20 percent in much less time than you would waste looking for the 100 percent candidate. Relationships begin with getting to know each other and you build onto it from there. You teach them about you and you learn about them, and you grow together as a couple.

Mark has specific qualities he’s looking for in his soul mate. For example, he believes her name is Sarah, she has blonde hair, is a former beauty queen, and loves children and animals. Is it any surprise that Mark is 30 and still hasn’t found her? Instead of looking for this fictional person of his dreams, he should put more energy and effort into really getting to know the women he’s already met. If he loosens up his boundaries, he may discover that his perfect match isn’t at all who he thought she was. And maybe she was right there in his life the whole time.