How Plato discovered bluffing

Yesterday after class one of my classmates asked me whether I believe in True Love, as she is having some “issues” with her personal situation, and is debating her take on the whole “love and relationship” thing.
Without going too far into the story behind it, there is an Ex, and he might not remain Ex for long. So naturally she is considering whether Ex is really the one for her or not, and if there even is something like a “the One”.

This reminded me of a few years ago, when I just moved to Ireland.
The company I started working for over there paid for a Bed&Breakfast for two weeks, giving employees the time and chance to find their own, permanent, accommodation. I was rather lucky here, having a B&B close to the bus lines and with multiple rooms, a friend of mine was secluded away in a beautiful house, which was nonetheless situated a 35 minute walk from the nearest neighbours, and surrounded by very spooky forestage.
Another plus was the fact I shared the place with other employees of my company, thusly solving the problem of “but what if I can’t find anybody to talk to?”
I met a very nice young woman this way, with whom I started to spend some time walking through town and talking.

Before long, as these things are wont to do, the rumours started to happen, and not long after that, they proved to be grounded somewhat in reality.
Well…. HER reality.
Apparently I was already part of some sort of fantasy, prompting her to start “showing up” at places at some very strange hours.
This could of course not continue, I don’t mind being stalked when I am pet-free as much, but I really liked her as a friend and her feelings for me seemed not the wisest guides on the path of life. The fact that “feelings for me” are NEVER the wisest things to follow should be mentioned here, I can be quite chaos-catalysing.

So we had a talk, considering how our friendship was moving and what could be done about her feelings for me. This met with instant resistance and denial, and some storming off and slamming doors, after which we didn’t really speak for half a year. After this period, some e-mails started to be sent, describing the fact that she did indeed have feelings for me then and didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Now I am not vindictive and don’t hold grudges, and I also make no apologies for human needs, as feelings can not be hypocritical or fake, as long as you are honest about them, and forgiveness was soon given.
We continued our friendship over a distance and sometimes trained over to each other’s houses to spend a weekend talking and watching movies, it was all quite comforting.

Until we were standing on a bus stop discussing the way life was going and she suddenly, offhandedly and without any idea she was doing it, destroyed my perceived chances of acquiring good dating karma.
We were speaking about love, life, and destiny when she suddenly said that at least her obsession with me and the lack of result taught her that for her there was no one true love. And I balked like a little mule in front of a big bridge. Made of fire. A wood mule.
Because I do believe in True Love, deep down I am a romantic and sappy person, and I like little better than the idea that somewhere, somehow, everything is all right.
To then be used as evidence in someone else’s cynicism without beforehand giving this person ample reason and argument was unexpected and unwanted.

I don’t necessarily believe that there is One True Love, someone who will be the one and only for ever and ever, I think that this is fine for some but not for all and only living a full live will tell you what camp you end up in. I think there are a multitude of people who make a life a little more complete, and some who possibly could but you never meet, and some who could but don’t.

When humans first started being human, there were only a few of us, so only a few souls to go around. Creationism can be aligned with Plato to give us a “split soul” theory, which also ties in nicely with popular culture and soul mates. But it doesn’t end there.
There are 6 billion people on the planet, starting with only a comparative handful. So the souls must have split over and over again, and are most likely still doing so, even counting reincarnation, as some must go to Nirvana or Hades after all their cycles, not too mention that there are still more people being born.

So it seems logical that all these first souls have split over and over again, leaving us all with pieces of a complete one. Also the reason why you meet the same people in every life, all be it in different roles. They could simply have been parts of the same soul you as well were part of once.

It also means that there are many different people who can be your soul mate, and many ways for them to be so. Nobody knows exactly where they fit into the puzzle, and nobody needs to know, as long as there are still people/pieces around us who give us the relative perspective, and teach us the lessons we need to learn over the course of a lifetime. Friends, family, people you meet on a bus but who do change your outlook on life, they all were once part of the same being, and they all still have this effect on you because the soul recognizes it’s own, this recognition may well be the origin of love, friendship and trust, but also the base of hate and dissent, as who has personalities that all align perfectly?

So I believe that life brings us in touch with ourselves in more ways than one, and using more people than one, so it could be foolish to say that there is only one person to love on the planet. Also, if there is, and mine lives in Greenland/Australia/Brabant, how am I supposed to meet this person?
This last question might prove my optimism, as no matter how often I see God’s (dis) involvement in humanities happiness, I still do not believe hesheitthem would knowingly screw up someone’s life without a good reason, and usually the chance to meet will be there through moving, blind luck, vacations or internet. The fact that Boyfriend hails from the other side of the planet and all is an argument here, but I’m not sure yet if it is for or against my thesis…

So yes, I do believe in true love, and even in multiple true loves, but part of me still thinks there should be only one. I blame popular culture. I am luckily enough of a realist to appreciate what is there now, and to take things as they come. But I also like to keep the possibility of forever in the back of my mind. And will remain doing so for the foreseeable future.

I’ll tell you whether I was right in about a thousand years, providing I can keep up the immortality I have been practicing for the past 25 years.

Till then, stripes at half open,

Kevin

Ps. Also, the title to this blog is a VERY obscure pun, even for me, so I will explain it here.
**********Spoilerline****************

Plato wrote in his Symposium about how humanity used to look different from our current outlook, when we used to have four legs, for arms, two head. There were three sexes then, one man-man, one man-woman, and one woman-woman. The details and reasoning is a bit hazy for me, but the Gods split us up into the halfs of a whole we are now, and the pain of this separation was love. True love is described as finding the other half of the being you once were.
For details, check out Plato, he did some fine writing.
Now, true love is also what Wesley answers with the help of some bellows in "The Princess Bride" when he is almost dead and asked why he is hanging on. Only because he is basically dead and his lips don't work well, the magician interprets his words as "Two Blave", meaning to bluff.

Ok, those with somewhat refined senses of humour will kill me for the title-pun, lovers of philosophy for the bastardizing of Plato, and sappy 80's kids for the desecration of TPB, so I am dead either way, but as Housemate falls in all three of the categories she will most likely call first dibs. Which I now negate by doing so myself, as I do as well fall in all three categories.
Dibs.