Can someone be your soulmate, but not someone you're in love with?

no, because that person is not your soulmate, they are your (word i totally can’t think of right now) everyone has their soulmate and their (forgotten word). you love your soulmate, you connect, you’re in love. but with your (clair is a dumbass), it’s like they’re your ‘lost twin,’ they do things similar to you, you feel something there when you’re together, more so than a best friend but not quite like a soul mate. i wish i could google it if only i could think of this damn word. i read it in the “psychic bible” then did more research. maybe someone else could help with this effin word…

“Soulmate” implies that there is such a thing as a soul. Since I don’t subscribe to that belief I would have to say that there is no such thing as a soulmate.

I believe that would be called a “platonic relationship”. I think that friends can share a deep bond, sometimes even deeper than those between lovers.

And I’m of AC’s school of thought, though. Souls? Hmmm…

I believe in it, I kind of live that scenario. My ex husband was and still is my best friend but we will never be a romantic couple again and are very comfortable this way.

oh by all means yes, but then again the whole “soul” thing is a perpetual soultie that can always be exhumed no matter how many years.

My best friend is a gay man and is totally my soul mate (everyone mistakes us for an old married couple). It has nothing to do with sexual attraction, it has everything to do with intimately knowing and seeing the other as a natural extension of one’s self.

Soul friend?

I call one my “best friend” and the other my “best friend & lover”. I have no problem having two “bests”...they are both very special to me…wtf

I think that someone can be your soulmate but that nothing is there romantically. However lucky for me, my boyfriend is my lover and my soulmate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate
so how can you have a soulmate when there’s no deep feeling
such as love?

“Soulmate” is one of those hard to define words. I think it means a lot of different things, depending on who is using it. A soul connection implies a kind of relationship that goes beyond the physical to some deeper level. As such, it seems quite possible to have your soul mate to someone else’s, while your body craves someone else again.

It seems to me that one could have more than one soulmate. Mate can be seen in the British sense: a friend you hang out with, or a person you feel close to. You can have a lot of those kinds of mates.

The other meaning of mate, of course, has to do with a dyadic relationship that is supposed to last for life. The exclusivity seems to be related to reproduction more than anything else. You don’t really want to be bringing up children you are not related to genetically—at least in the old days.

I think soulmate means someone you feel very close to on both an intellectual and empathic level. You share so much in the way you view life and the world. This relationship, though, is not necessarily sexual, nor does it have to be about romantic love. It is a more permanent, steady love based on so many connections.

So, no, a soulmate doesn’t have to be someone you’re in love with romantically, although, because of the connection, you can not help but love them like a brother.

yes just like how you can love someone but not BE in love with that person.

Love is depressingly one-dimensional if all it can encompass is romantic love.

A soulmate can be the brother or sister you never had, from parents you were not born to.

I don’t know if we have souls. If we do, I don’t know if we have soulmates. That said… There is something so indescribable in trying to properly convey how important, special and close we feel toward others sometimes.

Regardless of the facts, sometimes “soulmates” comes closest to describing certain relationships, even if the definition is technically wrong. There are certain people in my life who I feel this way toward. It’s not always the opposite sex, sometimes they’re just friends. Sometimes it feels as if you know them so well, that you must have known them before, in some kind of past life. There is such a great degree of understanding between two people sometimes… It’s just… I don’t know. Indescribable.

So yes. I have called certain friends soulmates and they have said the same of me.

@cyndihugs: There obviously is love. There just isn’t sex. Sex and love are not the same thing at all.

@MacBean
lol
isn’t love another word for sex?
although love can mean different things
it’s just one of it’s meanings
ex.
i made love tonight.

@cyndihugs it is. It’s also used to mean “I really like this thing” so I would not take the word literally when it’s used in either of those ways. When someone says they love sushi, they do not mean they make love to their dinner. Likewise, when someone says they love their children, most of the time they do NOT mean they make love TO them.

Is English your second language?

@3or4monsters
no
i understand that
love comes in many different forms/ways
there are many different ways to love
although love can mean different things
i did stated that

Maybe “Kindred spirit” is the term we’re looking for. Soulmate does often have romantinc connotations (though it doesn’t have to), but there are people (as @3or4monsters said) who feel like they should be related to us – our spirit’s kin, if you will.