The Best “No” I Ever Had

We like to believe that we choose our relationships for our own reasons.

We believe we know why we want someone.

Why we fall in love.

Why we stay.

Why we leave.

And why one person feels different from another.

But underneath all of those conscious explanations is something much older.

Something that does not care about our stories.

Our subconscious mind.

Our unconscious mind.

Our nervous system.

And these systems have been operating long before we created the explanations we now use to describe our relationships.

Human beings come together for many reasons.

We create relationships.

We build families.

We bond.

We attach.

And underneath all of this is biology.

Our bodies are designed to move us toward connection, attachment and reproduction.

You can consciously decide that you do not want children.

That is your decision.

Your life.

And that decision is completely valid.

But your decision does not rewrite your nervous system.

It does not erase biology.

It does not remove the subconscious and unconscious processes that have been part of human development for thousands of years.

The meaning you give your relationship does not necessarily change the processes operating underneath it.

And this becomes especially interesting when there are no children.

If two people decide not to have children, something still has to connect them.

Something still has to create the bond.

Something still has to give the relationship structure over time.

Because “I don’t want to be lonely” is not a structure.

“Someone has to make me happy” is not a structure.

And expecting another person to permanently regulate your internal state is not a sustainable foundation for a relationship.

Because what we want from another person is often projection.

We project feelings onto them.

Feelings we want to experience.

Feelings we do not want to experience.

Longings.

Expectations.

And assumptions.

We expect the other person to somehow create an internal state for us.

And when they fail to do that, the relationship begins to fail.

Not necessarily because the person is wrong.

But because the projection was impossible.

One of the biggest projections we have created around relationships is the soulmate.

“I am looking for my soulmate.”

“I need to find my soulmate.”

“I will know when I meet my soulmate.”

But how?

How exactly do you identify a soulmate?

What traits does a soulmate have?

How do you know that the person standing in front of you is the one?

You may say that you simply feel it.

But what happened to your last soulmate?

If that person eventually turned out not to be your soulmate, then the feeling itself cannot be the measurement.

So what are you actually looking for?

A person who can read your mind?

A person who knows everything you need without being told?

A person who fulfills everything you are longing for?

A person who makes you happy?

A person who makes you financially secure?

A person who somehow understands exactly what you need and delivers it without being asked?

That is not a soulmate.

That is a genie.

And when you put that expectation onto another human being, you are no longer meeting a person.

You are evaluating them against a checklist.

Does this person make me feel what I want to feel?

Does this person behave how I expect?

Does this person provide what I believe a partner should provide?

Does this person match the picture in my head?

And the more relationships we experience, the larger that checklist becomes.

Every disappointment adds another condition.

Every failed relationship adds another requirement.

Every painful experience becomes another rule.

Until eventually, the person standing in front of you has to pass a test they never agreed to take.

And we often do not even communicate the complete checklist.

We simply expect the other person to know.

To understand.

To provide.

To fulfill.

And when they don’t, we make them responsible for our disappointment.

But there is another way to approach relationships.

Don’t take this personally.

If you are looking for someone because you don’t want to be lonely, then loneliness is something you need to understand inside yourself.

If you are looking for someone because you need them to make you happy, then that longing belongs to your internal world.

If you are looking for someone because you need them to give your life meaning, then the meaning cannot permanently come from another person.

These are not necessarily relationship problems.

They are internal states being projected onto a relationship.

And when you begin to resolve those states within yourself, something changes.

You no longer need another person to carry them for you.

You no longer need another person to make your life work.

You no longer need someone to rescue you from your own internal experience.

And this changes the entire relationship dynamic.

Because now the outcome can become less important.

If someone says yes, good.

If someone says no, also good.

Not because you don’t care.

But because your life does not collapse when another person does not choose you.

You already have a life.

And then you can look for someone who enriches it.

That is fundamentally different from looking for someone to run it.

If someone enriches your life and they say no, it may hurt.

But it does not destroy you.

Because your internal state is not dependent on their answer.

You remain yourself.

You remain connected to your own life.

You remain capable of moving forward.

And that creates something very different from expectation.

It creates space.

Space for two people to meet without one person being responsible for the emotional survival of the other.

Space to explore each other.

Space to learn from each other.

Space to discover what both people actually want.

Someone enriches your life.

You enrich theirs.

And then you build what you both want to have.

This is where the idea of a soulmate becomes interesting.

Maybe a soulmate is not someone who arrives already knowing how to complete you.

Maybe becoming soulmates is the process.

Exploring each other.

Knowing each other.

Learning from each other.

Building something together.

Not searching for someone who will run your life.

But meeting someone who can walk beside the life you already have.

I learned something about this myself a few years ago.

I flew from Thailand to Japan to tell a woman that she was extremely important to me.

I was looking for a relationship.

And I flew there specifically to underline how important she was to me.

And she said no.

For me, it was the best no I ever had in my life.

Because that no made me look deeper.

Three years before that flight, I could not fly at all.

I normally enjoyed flying.

But at that time I was experiencing panic attacks.

I remember one specific flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

I ran out of the airport.

Then I went back inside.

Then I left again.

I went up and down near the boarding gate.

I called my appointment.

I said I was coming.

Then I said I wasn’t coming.

I could not get on the airplane.

It was horrible.

Three years later, I flew to Japan.

And at that time, I believed that if I could make that flight, then perhaps I had solved the problem.

I flew there.

I told her how I felt.

And I got the no.

That no became the ultimate stress test.

And it made me a better person.

There were two possible outcomes.

She could have said yes.

Or she could have said no.

She said no.

And that no became one of the most valuable experiences in my life.

Because life is a movie.

And sometimes the scene you desperately want is not the scene that changes you.

Sometimes the scene you never wanted becomes the one that forces you to look deeper.

That is what happened to me.

I became a better person because I looked deeper.

Because of that no.

And this is why I question the way we search for relationships.

We often search for someone who will finally make everything right.

Someone who will remove loneliness.

Someone who will create happiness.

Someone who will provide security.

Someone who will understand everything.

Someone who will finally match the picture we have created.

But what happens when that person says no?

What happens when the soulmate you found three years ago turns out not to be the soulmate?

What happens when the relationship does not match the picture?

What does it cost you to keep searching?

And what could change if the outcome simply stopped being responsible for your inner state?

Perhaps the goal is not to find someone who completes your life.

Perhaps the goal is to understand yourself well enough that your life is already yours.

Then someone can enter it.

Someone can enrich it.

Someone can challenge it.

Someone can teach you.

Someone can walk beside you.

And sometimes someone can say no.

And you can still be okay.

Because the relationship was never supposed to run your life.

It was supposed to be part of it.

And perhaps that is where a real soulmate begins.

Not when someone fulfills everything you are missing.

But when two people who are already living their own lives decide to build something together.