Transcript | Ep. 112: Ask Unladylike: Does ‘The One’ Exist?
[Music Clip: Someday My Prince Will Come’ into record scratch]
[Theme music]
Caroline: Hey Cristen
Cristen: Well hello Caroline
Caroline: Hello! Today, we are doing something brand new on the podcast. This episode is our first installment of Ask Unladylike, where we’re gonna be answering YOUR burning questions about complicated friendships, uncomfortable family issues, toxic workplaces, you name it!
Cristen: Yeah, basically the kind of stuff that Google is really no good at answering.
Caroline: Oh for sure. And listen, sometimes, we'll bring on experts to weigh in. But we'll also be sharing our personal experiences and relying on our decade of research on gender and identity to get to the bottom of what is going on.
Cristen: Well Caroline, are you ready to give some Unladylike advice??
Caroline: Let's do it!
[Stinger]
Cristen: Our inaugural letter today is a question about love. And I don't know if I should say, like love in quotes, but like the mythology of love and how we think about this. So, Caroline, would you like to read this letter that we received from Unladylike listener Jen?
Caroline: I would be honored.
Cristen: I thought you were going to say, "I would love to" just stay on theme, but.
Caroline: Oh oh man, this Goldfish memory -
Cristen: I'll take honor.
Caroline: gets me every time. OK. Hi, Cristen and Caroline. I don't Jen, I don't know if you talk like that. Hi, Cristen and Caroline.
Cristen: Hello, Jen.
Caroline: “The concept of the quote unquote one has ruined me. Society has pushed this notion of your one true love, your soulmate, the only person in the whole world of 7.53 billion people as of 2017 that is made for you. Now, I'm not bitter about love. I love love. And I'm in love with a wonderful man who treats me better than I ever could have imagined. Yet I still have this thought process throughout my relationship and all my previous relationships that he is the one. It's honestly a very destructive and unhealthy way to look at love and relationships. I know it is. And yet I still enter all relationships thinking they're my soulmate. Before the Victorian age, before the notion of romance and marrying for love, the concept of the one didn't exist. So it's not like humanity can't function properly without this concept. And yet I can't help myself. It was ingrained into my upbringing, thanks to Disney and other childhood stories tailored to all girls as the only purpose for living as a woman is to find your one true love. What complete bullshit! It's made me feel as though I can't be happy without a man in my life. I have a very successful career I’ve worked extremely hard for and yet that’s not enough for me if I haven’t found the one yet. I'm going to challenge myself to throw aside this concept. In a year, if I'm still madly in love with the man I'm with now, I'm not going to label him my soulmate. He's just the man I've decided to spend my life with. And if I'm not, I'm going to make having a successful career enough to be happy. It is for men. So why can't it be for women? What do y’all think of the notion of the one?” Well, I know what I have to say about this.
Cristen: What's that?
Caroline: There's no such thing as the one! Jen is exactly right, although there is a lot of conflict inherent in her email.
Cristen: yes, I'm hearing a lot of wrestling that Jen is doing between her logical side that knows that the one is bullshit and her - what would that be, maybe her romantic side that longs for the one.
Caroline: Yeah. I think what jumps out to me immediately from the letter is a bit of a false equivalence towards the end.
Cristen: Mm!
Caroline: So as soon as she talks about challenging herself to throw aside this concept, I fully - I'm on board, I support it. Let - let's challenge this like toxic, useless idea of the soul mate and throw it aside. You know, she talks about how she's, like madly in love with this man she's with and she's not going to label him her soul mate, he's just the man I've decided to spend my life with, but if not, I'm going to make having a successful career enough to be happy. And my thought is like, wait, why the stark choice, because if we're deciding that soul mates don't exist, and that you can just choose your partner, commit to your partner and love your partner, they don't have to be this like fictional soulmate. If it doesn't work out with this guy, why do you have to choose your job? Like the gif says that circulates Twitter all the time, why not both? Why can't you prioritize your job like you want to do and also accept love into your life?
Cristen: Yeah, and and I think that she explains kind of kind of gives us the reason for that conflict in the paragraph above where she says, it's made me feel as though I can't be happy without a man in my life, because that's where she also mentions I have a successful career I worked really hard for. And yet that's not enough for me if I haven't found the one yet. So not to play well, maybe to play therapist for a minute, I, I too am seeing like kind of the false equivalence there. And I'm wondering if Jen is directing a lot of a lot of this false belief that she is not a whole person without another person if she's kind of just directing all of that angst and conflict into this central cultural mythology of the one, kind of externalizing that rather than maybe paying a little bit closer attention to, well, what is it? What is it about not having a partner that makes you feel incomplete? I mean, this is something that we really unpacked a lot in our Singlehood series not too long ago, the idea of compulsory monogamy, of the ways that like legally we prioritize and incentivize partnerships and often like heterosexual partnerships and it - culturally we do the same thing as well. And I want to take a take a brief pause away from Jen, because I'm curious, Caroline, did the one that idea influence your childhood at all? Because I totally hear what she's saying about like, oh, my God, the Disney princesses and happily ever after, that totally got in my head.
Caroline: Oh, yeah. I just sort of took it for granted that, like. I you know, I'll grow up and I'll meet the one. I don't know how like conscious that thought even was, but it was just something that I believed the same way that, you know, when you're a kid, like before you've actually, like, grown up and had life experience and thought critically about what you actually want, you assume, like, yes, I will grow up, I will take my husband's last name. I will have 2.5 children and a dog and a fence and it will be perfect. Because, you know, what do you know, as a kid, you're just watching The Little Mermaid and you're like, I will give up my voice for a man!
[CLIP: Little Mermaid]
Ursula: What I want from you is your voice?
Ariel: My voice?
Ursula: You’ve got it sweetcakes. No more talking, singing, zip.
Ariel: But without my voice, how can I —
Ursula: You’ll have your looks. Your pretty face. And don’t underestimate the importance of body language.
Caroline: I think what the soulmate myth does is it makes you believe that there is a perfect person out there.
Cristen: Mm hmm.
Caroline: When? Come on, y'all, we know better. Nobody's perfect, including us and including anyone that we would date or marry. No one is perfect. And that belief, like, really sets you. Well, let me say - it set me up to believe that if there was conflict or if we disagreed or if, like, the person is frustrating the hell out of me, then like, oh, it must not be right.
Cristen: Mm.
Caroline: This isn't the right person. And it's not all just like coming together. So I'm not going to stick around. Like, I clearly need to go find someone who's right for me, and that idea is like the diluted version of the soulmate myth, right? Like the person who's right for me. Like, yeah there's a person out there or there are people out there who, like, fit with you better because of beliefs and values and attitudes and, you know, terrible movie choices and things like that. But it - the soul mate myth and believing that, like there's the right person or the wrong person ignores the fact that human relationships are a lot of work, and that has absolutely fucked up some relationships.
Cristen: Yes, it has, and we’re going to take a quick break on that cliffhanger, and when we come back I want to know Caroline when YOU broke open the myth of The One in your own life.
Caroline: Oh lord!
Cristen: Stick around
[Stinger]
Cristen: We’re back, talking about this idea of The One, your one and only soulmate. And I’m curious Caroline,when you started to realize that the one was in fact a myth, like was there any kind of pivotal moment where you were like, oh, oh yeah, this is this is bullshit, this has kept me avoiding conflict and just running rather than actually, like, staying and working on things. When did you start to unlearn "the one"?
Caroline: When I read Jen's email, I was trying to figure that out. I was trying to think about if there was a moment. And if there was, I don't remember it. It might have been just a more gradual learning of things as I got older and had more relationship experience. Because I think that in in my last relationship, for instance, I think a lot of those things clashed because multiple things can be true at one time, right? Like. It's true that there's no such thing as a soul mate, but it's also true that there are people out there who are wrong for you.
Cristen: Mm hmm.
Caroline: But it's also true that you can't rest on the idea of the relationship is going to be perfect, and if it's not perfect, that means it's not working. Like there was just - I had a lot of conflict in my last relationship, ran all of these, like, competing ideas. And I even, you know. Even after the idea of the soul mate had, you know, been extricated from my brain, I still held ideas about like this one particular person that I had had a romance with when I was college-aged, thinking that like, no, he's not my soul mate, but he's like, he's perfect for me.
Cristen: Mm hmm.
Caroline: And then, Cristen, he fucking broke my heart and turned out to be not only like kind of a shitty person, but just like a fucking snob, and as if I needed any more proof that the soul mate didn't exist, I was like, you know what, self? It doesn't matter how perfect someone is on paper or how much they tick all your boxes, you know of what you're looking for. Like what your what's on your vision board, you know. Some people are just wrong for you, and that is OK, and there are, like Jen specified, over 7 billion other people out there in the world. And when the time is right and like you've done the work on yourself and you're in a place where you're feeling emotionally and mentally healthy and you can accept and commit to a good relationship, then I think you can make a good relationship happen instead of forcing it.
Cristen: Mm hmm.
Caroline: But but I just said a lot of words. So, Cristen, what was your idea around the soul mate when you were growing up?
Cristen: Oh, I firmly believe that he existed and I knew who he was.
Caroline: Ohh?
Cristen: Because his name was Prince William.
Caroline: Oh.
Cristen: I crushed hard constantly as a girl. But like the intensity of my tweenage obsession and dedication to Prince William, I mean, it's just bar none. I, I just. I knew. I knew. I mean, we had Caroline. We had everything in common.
Caroline: Huh?
Cristen: He was left handed.
Caroline: Oh.
Cristen: I'm left handed. He likes music. As do I.
Caroline: Yeah.
Cristen: And really the left hand was a very strong I felt like that was a very strong bond. So I guess I didn't meet many other people who were left handed. And maybe maybe I should go ahead and say now that reveal that the my the my husband, he's right handed, so.
Caroline: Oh, my God.
Cristen: I mean.
Caroline: How do you get past that?
Cristen: Well, I haven't you know, I haven't. It's a work in progress. But I think that, like. And on a serious level, like I mean, obviously, you know, we have our childhood crushes, but when I read Jen's letter and I was thinking as well about my own beliefs and how it evolved to kind of unlearn the myth of the one, the first relationship that jumps out to me was the first guy who I really I really did genuinely think that he he was the one and he thought that I was the one. And I met him while I was in college and he was a bit older and he was a poet and like things were just very - it was the first time, like, I had been romanced and like I felt chosen, too, because he was this older guy with cool friends. And who was I you know, just some like young rando. And what I never expected and the course of that relationship was that I would fall out of love with him and we were together for a few years and, you know, he had met my family I at that time, even though I was in my early 20s, which is wild to think of now, you know, I was I was envisioning our life together like I really wanted us to, like, move somewhere together and make a life together. And the process of me falling out of love with him and me then also becoming attracted to other people was something that I was wholly unprepared for because I wanted to believe in the one.
Caroline: Yeah.
Cristen: It's a lot easier in a lot of ways to to buy into the one because if there's just the one bing, bing, once you find it, you got it, bag it, take it home, live with it for the rest of your life, you know.
Caroline: Yeah you don't have to do anything else, right.
Cristen: Exactly. You set it and forget it. It's like an instant pot. But I remember being fairly fresh out of college, I'm I'm starting to kind of make my own way in the world for the first time and suddenly like this this relationship has just lost its luster, and I didn't know how to end it because on paper he was everything that I should want. He was everything that I assumed my soulmate would have. And so I assumed there was something wrong with me that I no longer wanted that. And it kind of fucked me up for a little bit, to be totally honest, because I went through a phase of just assuming that I was broken in some way of like, well, I couldn't I couldn't hang on to this good thing. I wanted to destroy this good thing that I had. So I must be incapable of of actually, like maintaining, you know, a solid, worthwhile relationship.
Caroline: Well yeah I mean I hear that, but like let’s fast forward. I mean, you are married now
Cristen: Yes
Caroline: I’d say you're in a solid, worthwhile relationship. So how did, or how does the concept of The One play into that, play into your marriage?
Cristen: Well let me start with the proposal Caroline. When my now husband proposed to me, first of all, it was not a surprise, OK? We had talked about it, so I would like to put that out there. But when he proposed to me, I was happy about it. And I immediately said, yes, not because I thought that he was the one, and I almost feel guilty saying that out loud because how - what a terribly unromantic thing to say. But I said yes. Because the one does not exist, but this is the person that I choose. Yes.
Caroline: Yes, yes!
Cristen: This is the person that I choose. And I feel like he and I both have had to re choose each other at various points in our relationship, you know, it is a constant kind of thing, and once I the thing that I really locked into as I was kind of working out my - just the weirdness of being like engaged like, oh, God, what does that mean? Am I buying into these, like, patriarchal norms? But what I really settled on was like, no, like I'm I am choosing this. I am actively choosing this and. I feel OK about that. Lord have mercy, I sound so unromantic, but do you know what I mean?
Caroline: Yeah, I mean, love is in the mundane, right? To continue the theme of sounding unromantic. Like love is not in the Valentine's days and the anniversaries and the birthday dinners and the rituals because rituals are easy to fake and easy to fake your way through and and treat as evidence that your relationship is strong. Love, or the one, the concept of the one, like I said before, I truly believe that the one A) doesn't exist, but on the other side of that coin, the one is who you choose, and the person you choose is ultimately the person that you're going to have to slog through some mundane bullshit with.
Cristen: Mmhm
Caroline: And if you don't know how to or if you don't want to or cannot communicate and respect each other through the mundane and through the annoying and through the disappointing, because they will annoy you, they will disappoint you, they will piss you off. If you can't communicate and respect each other through that, then I don't know, then then what is your relationship?
Cristen: Exactly! And all of that mundane stuff and building respect and going through the tough parts of the relationship for the long haul. That is what is left out of the fairy tale happily ever after dot dot dot. That is what the myth of the One that we’re so often raised with leaves out entirely. So going back to to Jen, if I could wave a magic wand and kind of rewrite the pop cultural script of the one it would be in reframing the one as - as yourself. Like Jen, what I would I would love you to choose yourself. I would love you to choose yourself because - and I say that because you are understandably, as we've just been explaining, Caroline and I have been there some days, I'm still there. You are feeling incomplete in yourself. And and even the idea that, like, it's a man or it's a career, those are two things that are both outside of you. And so I would challenge Jen to - Jen, I would challenge you to ask yourself what about you and you alone feels lacking? Because another person or another career in, you know, that that's a good fit, they're going to amplify the good things that you like about yourself. But they're not going to change the DNA of who you are, they might challenge you to be a better person. But that's ultimately, again, it's up to you whether you want to be that better person. So. Caroline, just imagine how our lives might have been different if if our Disney fairy tales had been about, you know, the girl ultimately like choosing herself as the one not in a selfish way, but in a way of like, oh. I can be I can be a full and complete person by myself or with a partner.
Caroline: Well, if our if our Disney movies and rom coms were along those lines, we wouldn't have bestsellers like Codependent No More.
Cristen: Oh hahaha.
Caroline: Truly, because because looking for external validation — and we have all been there and it's constantly a battle I fight myself. You can't put the onus on someone else or something else to complete you. You're exactly right. And if you go into relationships or careers or hobbies or whatever, thinking that they will complete you, that's a recipe for depression and crashing and burning and having a low sense of self-worth. Relationships are best and they are healthiest when it is two fully formed humans paddling their own canoes next to each other rather than trying to get into the other person's canoe.
Cristen: Listen, and I'm not going to limit it to two canoes. There are some people who make it work with three canoes, four canoes, you know, etc. You can have a whole lake full of canoes.
Caroline: I love a canoe.
Cristen: If if there's one thing that I could recommend as homework reading, it would be one of our faves, an unladylike classic, Marriage” A History by Stephanie Coontz, because that was another kind of seminal book for me that I read that really reframed and gave me the cultural context of like where a lot of our Western ideas of marriage and romantic marriage, marrying for love, came from because Jen was right, that kind of pre Victorian era, the idea of marrying for love was extremely foreign. And I just wanted to quote Stephanie Coontz, that author, who wrote “This package of expectations about love, marriage and sex is extremely rare. When we look at the historical record around the world, the customs of modern North America and Western Europe appear exotic and exceptional,” like the idea that whoever you quote unquote end up with should be your soulmate, your best friend, your lover, your you know - your muse. Like all of the things the co parent to your children or to your dog, whatever it is, like no one person can fulfill all of these - all of these different roles. And it's unrealistic for us to expect that of another person because Lord knows, I would not want that expected of me. So, Jen. Choose you. You choose you.
Caroline: Choose you. Yeah, I like that choose you and let yourself off the hook, like.
Cristen: Yeah.
Caroline: It sounds like you're in love with your your dude, and let yourself be in love with your dude and love him, but love him actively, just like you love yourself actively, *boop* Continue to work on yourself and being your own whole person who chooses yourself. But don't forget that another part of dismantling the one or the soulmate is that, you know, you actually have to like work at relationships and be respectful of your partner, so. Yeah, choose yourself and choose - choose to keep working on it.
Cristen: And we are choosing to take a a quick break. Since Jen originally wrote us back in 2018, we decided to reach back out to her to see how’s she doing. And when we come back, we’ve got an update!!
Caroline: I have no idea what’s about to happen. Stick around.
[Stinger]
Cristen: All right, we’re back! Now, we actually received this letter from listener Jen a while back, so Unladylike senior producer Nora reached out to her for an update on how things have gone since then, and Jen responded!
Caroline: Yeah, me too. I am thrilled. Jen we so appreciate you updating us. And y'all seriously, Cristen and I have not had our eyeballs on this letter yet. Nora has kept this a secret from us. So, we are getting to it for the first time right now. And Cristen, would you do me the honor of reading Jen’s update.
Cristen: I would gladly accept that proposal Caroline. 1000 times yes. Jen writes. “So, I didn't throw away the concept of the "One," but I did alter how I view, think, and act about it. I'm no longer with the boyfriend I was dating when I wrote the initial letter, and I haven't been in a serious relationship since. I now view the "One" as there are more than just one "One," and there are different types of the "One." There's the "One" that's your best platonic friend, or the "One" who saved you from depression, or the "One" who taught you how you deserve to be treated, or the "One" who taught you what you don't want in a romantic relationship. And all these "Ones" have not been in vain. You walk away learning and growing from each experience. Whenever I start talking with someone, and it's looking promising, the concept of the "One" still pops in to bother me, but not in the same way as when I first wrote to you. I now think, optimistically, that this person might be the "One" I choose to spend the rest of my life with, but think, realistically, that this person might be a different kind of "the One" in the end, and that's okay. I know, if this person doesn't end up being the "One" I choose to spend the rest of my life with, I'll be okay with them being the "One" who taught me what I am or am not looking for in the person I end up choosing to spend the rest of my life with. As I said in my previous letter, I have a successful career, a career that I love. I'm in the early stages of starting the house-buying process this year. I adopted a dog almost two years ago (a short time after my last serious relationship ended), and I love my dog unconditionally. — Uh Jen as someone who is sitting here with a dog in my lap I can totally relate — I am so lucky to live close to my parents and brother and have amazingly supportive friends near and far. It's just my love life that still seems to be the big question up in the air, but I do feel better about my changed perspective regarding the "One" and how it doesn't control me anymore, at least not to the extent that it did in my teens and early 20's. I can also proudly say I am happy without a man in my life. It's taken a lot of self-growth, therapy, repetitive practice, trial and error, etc., to be able to say and share all of this. I can only hope others reach the point I have, and not necessarily throw away the entire notion of the "One," because it does represent companionship and love, which everyone mostly wants and definitely deserves. I know I do.”
Caroline: Oh my God.
Cristen: Jennnnn!
Caroline: Cristen, um, Jen took your advice. She chose herself.
Cristen: Yeah. Yeah.
Caroline: She she she has a happily ever after dot, dot, dot with herself, and I don't mean that in a way of like well that's it. Love life over. I really mean it in just the way of like, good for you. Like you you clearly have been doing the work. I love a woman in therapy. I love a woman who does work on herself and I love a woman who adopts a dog.
Cristen: Well and I'm also not hearing that same binary that she originally presented us of like the fulfilling work career or the fulfilling relationship. Like Jen has clearly sort of expanded her definition of what she needs and has around her already that really makes her life fulfilling, and I'm just so proud of Jen and I'm so happy for her.
Caroline: Yeah, yeah. And I love what she says about like the the concept of the one is still floating around of like there will be someone that I ultimately decide to to stick it out with for the rest of my life until I'm old and gray, like, I get that. And I feel the same way. Like I you know, even though I don't believe in like soul mates, there is ultimately like a person you pick and commit to. But I love what she says about how you can learn from all of your experiences. Because I at 37 can genuinely can genuinely look back at 99 percent of my romantic entanglements and genuinely say that I don't regret the slip ups or, you know, the pratfalls that I'm that I did learn from them. And I am so glad that Jen is in that space too.
Cristen: Yeah, and two words that Jen repeated throughout her letter that also makes me so happy. Are “I choose.” I choose.
Caroline: Yeah. There's so much pressure like that we put on ourselves. And I think it's just sort of accepted that like, well, what are you doing if you're not on all the dating apps, you know? So, yeah, the fact that that she can comfortably say, like I choose. That's that's a great place to be.
Cristen: Yeah, and also, Jen, you are steps ahead of me, too, in terms of adulting because you are working on buying a house. But that is an advice segment for another time, Caroline, because I am hearing myself shaming myself. So maybe we should wrap up.
Caroline: If you have questions you want answered in a future Ask Unladylike episode, drop us a line at hello@unladylike.co. And if you want to learn more about the concept of “The One” we’d recommend checking out Stephanie Coontz’s book Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. That book helped us think through some of the history of love, marriage and relationships.
Cristen: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly bonus episodes, listener advice and our undying love at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.
Caroline: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.
Cristen: This podcast was created by your hosts, Cristen Conger
Caroline: And Caroline Ervin of Unladylike Media.
Cristen: Next week…
[CLIP - Listener Voice Memo]
Ally: And there was that part of me that was so afraid that someone would look at me and go, no, you don't have ADHD, you are just looking for an excuse. And that fear kept me from addressing those and bringing it up to a doctor until I was twenty two adnd I was just crying on my kitchen floor because I, I couldn't get a grasp of my life. And that's when I finally called my doctor and we talked about it and she ended up agreeing to the diagnosis and start treatment. And truly, that was an amazing moment. It was really kind of life changing.
Caroline: We’re doing a deep dive on one of our most requested topics: ADHD. We’ll hear from Unladylike listeners about their experiences with ADHD and try to figure out why so many adult women are getting diagnosed.
Cristen: You don’t want to miss this episode! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Caroline: And remember, got a problem?
Cristen: Get Unladylike.
