Do you believe in soul mates?

I met my boyfriend 5 years ago in the Dominican Republic on vacation. Before we met I was a pessimistic lover. Similar to most people, I thought that love didn’t exist and that it wasn’t meant for me. I was in a relationship when we met, with an emotional and physical abuser. I thought that everything I did in that relationship was my fault, and I felt so low all the time. I knew I didn’t love him but I was stuck.

After graduating high school, my family decided to go on vacation to the Dominican Republic, I was excited and scared to get away. While on vacation I spent the first three days locked in my room talking to my, then, boyfriend. All we did was argue, and he threatened me saying I should remain faithful to him while there. After I ran up a $200 hotel phone bill for calling California, my aunt forced me to leave the room.

We went on a tour of casinos and nightclubs on a hotel bus. There were only three families on the bus including my aunt, and her friend and myself. I never really paid attention to the people on the bus, but I ended up sitting next to this guy. I thought he was from England, because all I knew was that he had a funny accent. But as it turned out he and his family were on vacation from New York. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and talking. He was 25; a construction worker, Italian-Scottish American and he had a house in Long Island.

We played on the slot machines and then went to one of the clubs and danced the Meringue (a famous dance in the Dominican Republic). We were really hitting it off. My boyfriend was in the back of my mind the whole time. I had never met anyone like this before, and there were so many feelings that I had for him after only spending a short period of time together. I really couldn’t explain what was going on inside of me.

After the tour I asked him to wait for me as I went to change out of my dress. Unfortunately I had too much to drink, and I passed out. To this day he won’t let me live it down that I stood him up that night, but he waited over an hour for me.

The next day we hung out at the bar of our hotel and decided to go to a night club with some people from our hotel and we danced at the club, and drank a lot! We talked until 2 a.m. and then decided to go swimming. While in the pool we were flirting a lot and one thing lead to another. I’ll just say that the next day, the pool was drained, and they were cleaning it.

I didn’t know how to feel because I’ve never been a person to jump quickly in to bed with someone. But something came over me. I was in lust. I really liked this guy, but I was still in this horrible relationship. The day after the incident we were eating breakfast together with my family, and I couldn’t even look at him because I was so embarrassed about what happened the night before. My aunt kept talking to us but I didn’t hear a word she said.

Later that day we went to the beach and just held each other. We just stared in to each other’s eyes and I felt like I wanted to marry him. I felt butterflies in my stomach and I felt happier than I did in a long time. We talked about staying there on the beach forever and not wanting to return to “real life.” I was starting school at CSUN in two weeks and he had to get back to work.

We stayed up all night talking and kissing each other, because my plane was leaving the next morning. We exchanged numbers. I wrote my number and e-mail on a dollar bill, and he wrote his information on a 10 peso bill, which is equivalent to a U.S. dollar bill. We saved the money to this day.

On the plane I cried so hard. I felt like I left the love of my life behind. I didn’t want to go back to Los Angeles, I wanted to go to New York and be with him. When I got home that night, he sent me a text message telling me how much he missed me already. I immediately broke up with my other boyfriend who stalked me for two months after. I had to change my number and move away for him to leave me alone.

I started dating the guy from New York. We had a long distance relationship for 6 months and saw each other once a month. I would go to New York on the weekends to visit him in my freshman year here at CSUN.

Now that I am graduating this year, I have been thinking a lot about the beginning of my college time. My boyfriend has a lot to do with my college experience.

I definitely think that soul mates exist. Everyday I think about the situation that I could have been in if I stayed with my ex-boyfriend. There must have been some reason why we were both on vacation at the same time and that we met when we did.

He has since moved here from New York so we can be closer and now we live together. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.