Not in some ambitious, five-year-plan sort of way.
I mean romantically.
I wanted to know whether there was actually going to be somebody else.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Just… eventually.
Because when you have spent years automatically imagining one particular person beside you in every future version of your life, losing them leaves a strange blank space.
You stop thinking:
Where will we live?
Where will we travel?
Will we ever get married?
And suddenly the question becomes much more basic:
Will I actually love anybody like that again?
That was probably why the idea of a soulmate sketch caught my attention.
At first, I rolled my eyes.
Someone was supposedly going to draw the person I was destined to meet?
Right.
And perhaps they could also tell me next Saturday’s lottery numbers while they were at it.
But I kept thinking about it.
Not because I suddenly became convinced somebody had supernatural access to my future.
Because I realised I desperately wanted the future to have a face again.
After a Breakup, the Unknown Can Feel Enormous
When my relationship ended, I knew exactly who I had lost.
What I did not know was what came after him.
That uncertainty was much harder than I expected.
When friends said things like:
“You’ll meet somebody else.”
I knew they meant well.
But somebody else is incredibly abstract.
Who?
When?
Where?
Would I even like him?
Would he understand me?
Would I feel chemistry again?
Would I compare everyone to my ex?
Would I recognise something special when it finally appeared?
Those questions did not disappear simply because people told me to concentrate on myself.
And that is where I think soulmate sketches become psychologically interesting.
They take this enormous unknown person and turn them into something visual.
Suddenly there are eyes.
A jaw.
Hair.
An expression.
A person-shaped possibility.
I Don’t Think You Have to Believe It Literally
I eventually read a proper explanation of a soulmate sketch and how the process actually works, and that distinction made the whole thing much more interesting to me.
The sketch is real.
The artwork exists.
The interpretation surrounding it is something else entirely.
There is obviously no reliable scientific method that can prove a drawing is the exact face of the person you are going to fall in love with.
And I think pretending otherwise ruins the interesting part.
For me, the appeal was not:
“Excellent. I now possess photographic evidence of my future boyfriend.”
It was more:
“That’s funny. Somewhere in the world there may genuinely be somebody I haven’t met yet who will become incredibly important to me.”
That thought felt surprisingly hopeful.
The Face Almost Doesn’t Matter
This is what surprised me most.
I expected the whole experience to be about what he looked like.
Was he attractive?
Was he blond?
Dark-haired?
Older?
Younger?
Did he have a beard?
But once you start imagining another relationship, the visual stuff very quickly becomes secondary.
I started wondering:
Would he be emotionally available?
Would conversation feel easy?
Would I trust him?
Would I feel calm around him instead of constantly wondering where I stood?
Would he make an effort without needing to be chased?
Would he actually want the same type of relationship I wanted?
And suddenly the imaginary face had done something useful.
It had made me think about the relationship rather than the person I had lost.
That Was a Bigger Shift Than I Expected
For months, almost every romantic thought I had somehow circled back to my ex.
A song reminded me of him.
A restaurant reminded me of him.
Seeing couples reminded me of him.
Even imagining dating somebody else somehow became a comparison with him.
Would this hypothetical man be funnier?
Would he be more affectionate?
Would the chemistry be as strong?
Would sleeping beside somebody else feel wrong?
It was exhausting.
Then this silly little idea of a completely unknown person appeared.
Someone with no history attached.
No arguments.
No unanswered messages.
No complicated memories.
No version of the breakup to analyse for the thousandth time.
Just possibility.
And I think that was what I actually needed.
Hope Can Be Useful Even When It Isn’t a Prediction
There is a huge difference between hope and certainty.
Certainty says:
This exact person is coming into your life and this is what he will look like.
I do not think anybody can responsibly promise that.
Hope says:
Your romantic life did not end because one relationship ended.
That, I could work with.
Maybe the man in a soulmate drawing exists.
Maybe he looks completely different.
Maybe I have already walked past him somewhere.
Maybe he lives five streets away.
Maybe he lives in another country.
Maybe I will not meet him for three years.
Maybe the person I eventually love will make the sketch look hilariously wrong.
None of that really bothered me.
The useful part was simply remembering there were still people I had not met.
I Also Understand Why People Get Carried Away With It
There is another side to this.
If you are extremely lonely or heartbroken, something like a soulmate reading can become more powerful than it deserves to be.
You could start looking for that face everywhere.
You could meet someone vaguely similar and convince yourself:
This must be him.
And then ignore obvious incompatibilities because you desperately want the prediction to be true.
That would worry me.
No drawing should overrule the actual person standing in front of you.
If someone is inconsistent, unavailable, dishonest, or simply wrong for you, the fact that his eyebrows happen to resemble a sketch is not a reason to stay.
Real relationships still have to work in reality.
What I Actually Took From It
Eventually, I realised the soulmate sketch was not really about finding him.
It was about allowing myself to imagine that there could be a him.
Someone different.
Someone I had never kissed.
Never argued with.
Never waited for.
Never tried to convince.
Someone whose name meant absolutely nothing to me yet.
There was something incredibly liberating about that.
Because heartbreak makes the past feel enormous.
It fills your entire field of vision.
The relationship you lost feels like the relationship.
The person feels irreplaceable.
The story feels finished.
But it usually isn’t.
There are whole parts of your life that have not happened yet.
People you have not met.
Conversations you have not had.
Places you have not visited.
Someone may eventually become enormously important to you who, today, is simply a stranger walking around living his own completely separate life.
I don’t need a psychic drawing to prove that.
But I can understand why sometimes seeing an imaginary face makes the possibility easier to feel.
And after a breakup, sometimes possibility is exactly what you need.
