NdukuOutLoud

Love, intimacy, and the myths we inherited that no longer fit the times.

Saw a post today about love and “the one” and why it is so hard to maintain relationships in this time and age. The idea was that the world we live in now, with all its speed and pressure, wasn’t built for intimacy. Or maybe intimacy wasn’t built for such fast-paced times? Honestly, I think both could be true. Because intimacy requires presence. It asks us to slow down, to listen, to be there. And that’s hard when everything around us is designed to keep us moving.

But my thoughts today aren’t really about intimacy itself, or my own struggle to offer and experience that deep, novel kind of connection. They’re about the ideas of “the one.”

This notion that there’s one person out there made just for us. The constant yearning for them. The staying in toxic relationships because we worry-what if this is the one? The fear of leaving and losing out. The feeling of failure when we can’t find them. Because if the one exists, and we haven’t found them….what does that say about us? Or them? Or the path we’ve taken?

Maybe we’re just not following the script. Maybe we’re not behaving or growing as planned. And so the one- whoever they were meant to be- doesn’t fit anymore.

And where did this idea even come from?

Turns out, it’s ancient.

Pluto wrote describing humans as once whole beings split in two by the gods, doomed to search for their other half forever. Romantic literature picked it up centuries later, and the Bible added its own flavor with And and Eve. Two people created just for each other in a perfect garden.

But if we’re honest: those stories were written for worlds that no longer exist. They weren’t built for dating apps, global mobility, emotional complexity, or the kind of self-awareness we’re now asked to carry. They can’t be the best blueprints.

But now, maybe with AI, we can create our one. Too soon?