How to Recognize Your Soulmate

or, Why I Married My Cheesemonger: A Love Story

December 24, 2005

I feel I should warn you – since you don’t know me, and I don’t know you – that my love story ends as most great love stories end, in death. It was middle age instead of old age for us, but still, we had our life together. And this story is about our beginning.

The first moment I saw David, I was walking between the meat and fish counters in St. Lawrence Market. I had moved to Toronto the week before and I was returning to Chris Cheesemongers to buy more of my favorite aged gouda. I looked across the Market and a saw a new salesman at the counter. He turned in my direction as a colleague spoke and flashed a blinding grin, a Tom Cruise-level megawatt smile.

It wasn’t directed at me, and yet it stopped me in my tracks. Later I would discover how rare that grin was. Dave’s usual smiles were quiet and subtle. He grimaced at cameras. But every once in a while, the world was treated to his grin.

Photo by tommao wang on Unsplash

And then I heard this entire conversation in my head:

“There’s your husband,” said Intuition.

“What?” said Brain.

“There’s your husband,” Intuition repeated.

“Now is not really a good time,” said Brain. “I’ve just moved here. I’ve got classes to prepare for. A book to write. A career to establish. A condo to renovate. Things to do. Not a good time.”

“Yeah, ok. Your choice.”

And then Intuition played out that choice for me. Do you remember that Levi’s commercial from the 90s? The couple in the elevator? It was like that, but without the sexy bellybutton:

In my mind I saw 2 choices: the one in front of me, which would give me the happy marriage I always said I wanted, or another, which would arrive a little later, and would be easier in some material ways, but deeply unhappy and eventually fall apart.

And so I listened to my intuition, stepped up to the counter, and smiled at this cheesemonger.

I flirted for three months. He flirted back but didn’t ask me out. Later, I understood this. He was a handsome man with a mysterious accent, safe behind a counter. Women flirted with him everyday, using him for practice. He knew better than to take it seriously.

I know it would have been more efficient to ask him out, but Intuition told me that he needed to do the asking. And so I went in every few days, buying tiny pieces of cheese so I would have an excuse to return two or even three times a week.

Throughout that summer, I annoyed my friends by talking constantly about this cheesemonger named David, last name unknown, because he said I wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. (He was right. I never did learn to pronounce it correctly.) My best friend from college sent me a package. The note told me not to call again to talk about the cheesemonger until I resolved the issue, one way or another. She included a burned CD with this track:

(This silly song makes me cry now.)

Finally, in early September, a colleague of Dave’s walked up to me and asked, “Do you like him?” just as if we were in 7th grade.

I said, “What, have I been subtle?”

He laughed and went back behind the counter and whispered in Dave’s ear.

I didn’t like feeling like I was in a scene from the junior high playground, but I was happy things were finally moving.

Dave turned to me and asked for my number.

Our first date was at a restaurant he knew through work. Not the fanciest restaurant in Toronto, but a good one, much better than a normal first date one, one committed to buying high quality cheese. There were moments during our first conversations that I felt uncertain, and I asked my intuition, “Really? Are you sure?”

And what I heard back was, “You know I am.”

And I did.

David moved in 3 months later and we married 2 years after that.

A while ago, I asked myself if I had known how we would end, if that film of life had shown all the details, would I have still chosen David?

Yes. Yes, I would. Despite ALS and grief, definitely. We were lucky to find each other.

But here’s the question: when I first saw David, why did I trust my intuition so very strongly? How did I know he was my soulmate?

It’s not like he was the first man I met that I felt a connection to. And it was years before I learned how to check in with my intuition through my body and feel completely confident.

I think there were two reasons.

First, I was in the middle of a rare lucky time, when everything in my life flowed with ease. I had completed my PhD. I had won that rarest reward of academia: a tenure-track job at a Research I university in a large cosmopolitan city. That spring I had flown in, found, and bought my condo in exactly the neighborhood I wanted, for the price I wanted, in only five days. Everything was falling into place. Why not this too?

Second, I had grown up hearing my father’s story of the day he met my mother. Mama always pointed out that they had met years earlier, but the first time he noticed her they were 14. When he got home from church that day he went to his neighbor’s, who we called Aunt Hossie, and told her he had met his future wife, and he would buy her a piano and cover her in furs. Seven years later she said yes to him, yes to the piano, and no to the furs. They’ve been married 55 years.

Everytime I met a someone, I’d think, “is he the one? Will I have what my parents have?”

This was the first time I had heard, “There you go.”

There is a difference between Soul Recognition and Soulmate

You don't need to believe in past lives to believe in having a soul mate or to believe that you can recognize someone soul-to-soul when you come across them. You can, but it’s not required. It doesn't matter a bit.

When I was professor, I kept my kleenex box in a drawer to deter students from crying in my office.

And yet they did, regardless. It didn’t help at all.

I can't tell you how many times I had young people, usually young women, sitting in my office after a breakup, crying, and saying, “but I knew him. I knew him,” confused that the relationship had ended, confused that it wasn't the ultimate relationship that they thought it was going to be.

And why is that? It’s because that person wasn't their soulmate. This wasn't the person they were supposed to be with.

But what they meant when they said, “I knew him” was that they had recognized that person, soul-to-soul.

Especially when we're young and that experience is very new, it feels profound. It feels like forever. You know that that person is supposed to be connected to you. And especially when you mix that in with being lovers, it just becomes so very intense. I

But soul recognition is not at all the same thing as soulmates.

Soul recognition is the intuitive acknowledgement that a person is supposed to be in your life.

How long and to what degree and for what purpose is up in the air, and it doesn't mean that that person is supposed to be everything to you. It only means that is someone who has come into your life that you at some level recognize and are comfortable with and believe that you're supposed to be close to.

Here’s how to tell the difference between Soul Recognition and Soulmate

Soul recognition is a rush. It’s a temporary high, a buzz like a sugar high, or a bit too much caffeine. The dialog in your head, or the way you feel in your body, goes like this,

“Oh, I know that person. I know that person. Yay, I know that person! Isn't that exciting!”

Many people move from relationship to relationship, seeking that rush, thinking that is sexual attraction (it can be, but it’s not only sexual attraction), thinking that it is the ultimate test of a relationship worthy of commitment.

But when the buzz fades, and the sexual attraction with it, what’s left is disappointment and grief and a deep distrust of your own intuition.

But your intuition was correct, you just misinterpreted what your body was telling you.

When you meet your soulmate, there is no sugar high. Don’t get me wrong, there can be deep, strong, overwhelming sexual attraction, but there’s also warmth. Warmth and assurance from deep within you that this is the right person.

The dialog in your head, or the way you feel in your body, goes like this,

“There’s your husband,” or
“Here you go,” or
”Her,” or
“There you are.”

It sounds and feels very differently from soul recognition. There’s no anxiety, no fretting.

Many, many people marry in the midst of soul recognition, and they feel their lives fall apart when the relationship ends. Their trust in their intuition is shattered because they believe their intuition misguided them.

But that is not the case. That is not the full story, which is this was someone you were supposed to know.

If this happens to you, it’s important to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for rushing. Forgive yourself for assuming. Accept that it was probably a soul recognition relationship and you can learn from it and move on.

Failed relationships can be painful, but they are just experiences like any other. You can choose to learn from them, release them, and move on.

It takes a long time, and concentrated effort, to trust in your intuition again. So take your time.

When you think you might have encountered your soulmate, tune into your inner voice and listen.

(not to the inner voice saying “that’s a really hot guy” – the other inner voice) and ask

“Is this person to be my partner in life, or is this person just someone I'm supposed to know?"

Wait for the answer.

Don’t rush it.

Wait until you feel it in your body, and you feel confident in it.

Wait for that assurance. That comfort. That confidence.

That’s how you know you’ve found your soulmate.

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