That’s the chorus from a song called “From Above” in the excellent Ben Folds album Lonely Avenue. The lyrics, written by author Nick Hornby, describe a tragic reality where soulmates exist. In it, a man and a woman who are soulmates constantly pass each other by throughout their lives—sitting near each other in the movies, passing by in a bookstore—but never actually meet.

This notion tortured me for a few years. Like the character in Parable for the Lovelorn, I once believed it makes mathematical sense that there is one person in the world who is better for me than all the others. This sent me spiraling down a chain of denial where I put my ideal potential lover on an imaginary and unattainable pedestal.

The notion of soulmates disintegrates the whole point of love and of being human. We can’t be static, expecting “the one” to fall into our laps. Rather than expecting another human to converge to us like a puzzle piece out of the box, we must learn and try to improve ourselves throughout our entire lives, adapting in consideration of the well-being of those we surround ourselves with.