Why you SHOULD wait for that lightning bolt moment

I’ve been properly single for a couple of years now (I’ve seen a few guys for a few months at a time but I wouldn’t necessarily have called them my boyfriends). Being a hopeless romantic and like most other girls, I’m in search of my Noah, (if any guys stumble across this and don’t know what I’m referring to, please watch the Notebook immediately). I even want to call my child Noah I’m that in love with the story.

I’ve had a fairy tale relationship in the past, my first boyfriend was a dream. We met when were 15 and he was dating another girl, after a year of friendship I plucked up the courage to tell him I liked him and the next day we were an item. Our relationship lasted 4 years and it was the best one I have had in my 25 years of life so far.

We were so similar, so in tune, that I felt as though we were one person. It may sound lame, but it was true. Our minds worked in the same way, we finished each other’s sentences and we could immediately read each other’s moods.

I remember the first day I saw him, I was walking home from the girl’s school and he was walking to the bus stop from the boy’s school, I definitely experienced that lightning bolt moment you read about in books and see in movies. I couldn’t stop thinking about him afterwards.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m still chasing a relationship like that. This week I read an article on the daily mail that stated what actions single people are taking (or not taking) that make them remain single.
The one point that stood out to me was that everyone chases that lightning bolt moment and as such they dismiss people that don’t provide that, or stay in a miserable relationship because they initially had that lightning bolt moment.
I realised that over the years I have been chasing exactly that. I’ve made friends with several lovely guys and dismissed anything happening with them purely because I didn’t experience that moment. It made me revaluate my approach to dating, maybe I wasn’t being open enough, maybe I needed to give people more of a chance, date people I wouldn’t normally date.

I pondered this on Thursday as I walked to meet a date from Bumble. He was a guy from New Zealand, let’s call him Jared. As soon as I turned up to the beer garden I spotted him: he was wearing a well fitted dark blue suit and tight crisp white shirt that was offset against his deep tan and dark hair. And in that moment, almost 10 years after I had felt my first lightning bolt moment, BOOM. I felt it again.

The date was amazing, one of the best I have ever had. Despite having totally different backgrounds, we had so much in common. He was successful but didn’t take himself too seriously. We had so much fun. We are currently planning our second date, but it made me think – regardless of whether this goes anywhere or not – we should all strive to find that lightning bolt moment.

Why should we settle for anything else? Why should we stay with someone that we kind of like, when our minds will probably always wander what else is out there? When there most probably is someone out there that will make us feel that way.

I’m not saying you constantly have to feel that way in relationship, that would be unrealistic and highly unattainable. But I don’t believe we have just one soulmate, there are 7 billion people in the world, the chances of finding that one individual are ridiculous. I believe we have multiple soulmates, how many of them I’m not quite sure of, but I definitely believe in waiting and not settling until you find one of them.