Darius Lovehall: Romance is about the possibility of the thing. You see, it’s about the time between when you first meet the woman, and when you first make love to her; When you first ask a woman to marry you, and when she says I do. When people who been together a long time say that the romance is gone, what they’re really saying is they’ve exhausted the possibility.
If you’re anything like me at all, when you hear titles of articles like Aja Dorsey Jackson’s Why I Believe that Soul Mates Don’t Exist you instantly cringe. And yet upon clicking, and then reading, I found that I agree with most of what she’s saying. Jackson seeks to point out to people that there’s not a single individual on earth you will meet that instantly zaps the need to work at compatibility. And the idea that such a person even exists gnaws at the very root of relationships. Jackson gives a very real and pragmatic way to look at things. This blog also advocates heavily for practical and logical approaches to Love and dating. So I’m not mad at her for writing this.
At the same time though, I don’t think the idea of having to put in work in a relationship and the idea of soul mates are mutually exclusive. Let’s think back to the first couple–no, not Obama and Michelle–but, Adam and Eve. God created Eve specifically as a helper to Adam by stealing his rib while he slept. The very word “woman”, in fact, means to come from man. Now this is no intentional disrespect to my same sex couples but the general theory is that subsequently God created every Eve with an Adam in mind. And he created Adam knowing Eve was coming. To me, the idea of soul mates refers to the creation of one soul with another soul in mind. And maybe some are actually blessed enough to meet that soul in their human life. I think it is possible. That possibility makes life and Love exciting and romantic. It keeps us motivated to go out there and suffer through the hardships of dating. You see, to quote the wise brother Darius from “Love Jones“, “Romance is about the possibility of the thing…when people who been together a long time say that the romance is gone, what they’re really saying is that they’ve exhausted the possibility”. Right now, I’m Living for the possibility that Mr. Right is the right one created by God with me in mind. And because I’ll never really know until I’m done with this life, that possibility can be endless if we want it to be and if we work for it to be. So let’s be smart about Love black folk–meaning we do the WORK involved in it to sustain it. But just because we’re working at it, let’s not exhaust the possibility of the thing.
The Misadventures of Ms. Not-Right-Now 