The fate of your soulmate

Shares0Facebook0 Tweet0 Pin0 Print0 Email0 LinkedIn0

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, written by established and upcoming playwrights, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV.

In Paige Nick’s The fate of your soulmate, a man weighs up the value of friendship against the companionship of tequila and whisky. Gary Naidoo performs the monologue, directed by Rafiek Mammon. Watch the performance here:

In this video, Gary Naidoo and director Rafiek Mammon discuss their creative approach to the performance of ‘The fate of your soulmate’.

The fate of your soulmate

I’ve recently spent far too much time thinking about soulmates.

Yours, mostly, as I don’t have one.

Do you believe in soulmates – or the idea that there’s just one perfect match out there for each of us?

Me? I don’t believe it.

But say I’m wrong, and there is such a thing as a soulmate. Call me a capitalist, but let’s give a trillion rand to the first person who figures out how to find yours.

We could get scientific and try narrow down the search. But that soulmate-finder algorithm has a lot of work to do. Because right now, the population of the planet sits at about – okay, wait – I don’t even know how to say this number. It’s a seven with nine numbers after it. Is that seven, almost eight billion people?

It’s. A. Lot.

And, geographically speaking, the internet says that the majority of these potential soulmates are located in China, India and surrounds. So, we’d better start applying for travel visas. In fact, they may have to create a whole new type of visa altogether. Forget student visas, holiday visas, spousal visas and working visas, we’re going to need soulmate-hunt visas.

Then, if you do somehow manage to find them, what if your soulmate doesn’t even speak whatever language you speak? No, wait, that’s impossible; the very definition of a soulmate is someone who metaphysically speaks the same language as you.

But don’t let me put you off the hunt yet. We’re South African; we’ve got more tenacity than that. I’m sure there’s more maths we can do to narrow down the search even further.

What if we assume that your soulmate is within the same general age group as you?

Then, each of us is left with maybe just over half a billion potential mates. One in half a billion can’t be that hard to find, can they?

Although, to be fair, I feel like I’ve been on dates with more than half of that already. But then, I’m not even lucky enough to find a parking space in town, so what are the chances that my one-in-half-a-billion unicorn-person goes to the same stretch and mobilise class as me, or will be behind me in the queue at home affairs tomorrow?

And then, there’s modern medicine to contend with. I’m no doctor, and I dropped out of advertising school, so don’t quote me on this, but does the soul even exist medically? Is it an organ or a ligament, or a network of muscles? And, if so, where is it located? Behind the kidneys? Next to the appendix? Would medical aid cover it, if yours broke and you needed it operated on? What’s the Discovery hospital authorisation code for that?

So, no, I’m sorry, but I don’t think soulmates exist. I do, however, think that relationships that succeed more than others, exist. And that well-matched couples who both work hard to keep their relationship together, exist.

And I believe that timing exists. Because what if you meet your soulmate when you’re in high school? And you both still need to study, travel, make a lot of bad decisions, get a stupid tattoo and a job, and change your personality half a dozen times, before you’re ready to commit and settle down?

Or what if you meet your soulmate, but you’re already married with three kids, and your perfect is heading off to a silent Buddhist retreat?

Or what if you walk past each other a dozen times throughout your life, but you’re both looking down at your phone every time?

So, add to the fact that you not only have to find your soulmate out of every person on the planet, but you also have to find them at the exact right time and place in both your lives, too. It’s relationship algebra.

While I may not believe soulmates exist, I do, however, believe that tequila and whisky exist, and that helps create soulmates, even if only for the night.

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is supported by the National Arts Council.