The Anti-Soulmate

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[00:00:00.240] - Oliver (Host)

Have you ever heard of the idea of a soulmate? That person we call one in a million, perfectly aligned with you in almost every way. That person who uniquely will make you completely happy. You probably have heard of the concept many times, but what about the opposite? The one in a million mismatch.

[00:00:22.960] - Oliver (Host)

The person who instantly drains your energy, disagrees with everything you say, and somehow turns even the simplest conversation into friction. Not a villain, not even necessarily a bad person, just someone who feels almost magically, cosmically wrong for you. Well, this episode is all about that person for me, my anti-soulmate.

[00:00:48.620] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome to English and Beyond, the intermediate-level podcast where I try to use real stories, psychology, culture, and honest conversations to help you improve your English naturally while exploring ideas that actually make you think. If you want to go beyond vocabulary lists and practise listening to English that feels real, reflective, and maybe even sometimes a little uncomfortable, you're in the right place.

[00:01:13.220] - Oliver (Host)

But I do also have vocabulary flashcards, vocabulary lists, and exercises to help you practise what we learn together. That's all available for free at morethanalanguage.com. So back to the episode and back to my anti-soulmate.

[00:01:30.780] - Oliver (Host)

Before I begin to rip this poor person to shreds, to criticise him heavily, I do want to highlight two things. First, this person is a native English speaker, so there's no chance of him listening to the episode, so don't worry. And what's more, this happened a long time ago. I'm not sure he would even recognise my representation of him. More on that later. And I'm absolutely sure he wouldn't care for reasons that will become clear.

[00:02:01.010] - Oliver (Host)

So a few years ago, I spent a holiday in Italy with a big group of friends. We were staying in two villas next door to each other. The person in question, the person I'm talking about, was a friend of a friend. I had seen him a couple of times at dinners, on nights out in London, but I hadn't seen him for a while and I'd never had a proper conversation with him, heart to heart. When I had met him previously, he'd always rubbed me up the wrong way slightly.

[00:02:31.750] - Oliver (Host)

That means he'd always irritated me a little bit. He'd always gotten on my nerves and I felt similarly on this holiday straight away. At first, I told myself it was just holiday friction. You know how it is when you're travelling with a big group. Small annoyances feel bigger than they should.

[00:02:51.510] - Oliver (Host)

They say that if you want to test a friendship or a new romantic relationship, you should go on holiday together. But it didn't take long before I started noticing a pattern that began to annoy me. He would interrupt people mid-sentence constantly. All conversations seemed to somehow bend around him, as if the energy of the room kept getting pulled in his direction. Somehow, even in this very big group, he seemed to always be involved in the discussion.

[00:03:23.740] - Oliver (Host)

No, not involved, dominating the discussion. And it wasn't always dramatic. Sometimes it was just the volume of his voice or the certainty with which he presented every opinion, even when no one had asked for one. For example, simple things like going out for dinner became a small battle. He always needed to choose the restaurant, the type of cuisine.

[00:03:48.310] - Oliver (Host)

He would ignore other people's politely offered suggestions. He'd often laugh about the fact that he was so self-centred. It was like he took pride in being decisive or authoritative when I was interpreting his actions as simply selfish. When we were deciding what to order, he insisted that no one should get dessert because it was unhealthy and a waste of money. He was extremely judgmental about the way that people looked in general.

[00:04:17.380] - Oliver (Host)

He would make really horrible comments about other people dining in the restaurants, for example. All of this may sound trivial, unimportant, and it was trivial, but in the moment, things like the comments about us ordering dessert felt strangely controlling, like the group's mood had to align with his preferences on every occasion. And then over these dinners, there were the long stories that always sounded slightly too polished, slightly too heroic, and I found myself wondering whether they were true or exaggerated versions of reality, or even entirely made up. And maybe the thing that irritated me most was something really stupid, something that reflects badly on me, actually: the confidence with which he tried to sort out meals, orders, excursions, etc., in Italian.

[00:05:11.210] - Oliver (Host)

He used a really exaggerated Italian accent, sounding to me almost like a parody. And he always took charge of these conversations, even though it was obvious that many others in the group were much better speakers of this language. But more on that specific point later in the episode. Listener, I know full well, I know very well, that none of these moments was catastrophic on its own, but taken together, they created a kind of constant low-level exhausting tension for me. I had the feeling that I was constantly holding back from saying what I really thought, that I was spending every day on this holiday biting my tongue.

[00:05:51.070] - Oliver (Host)

I couldn't stand his politics and his confidently expressed opinions. I couldn't stand his certainty about the little debates that people discuss over dinner, the fact that his opinion was always the loudest in any group. I couldn't stand the fact that everyone just seemed to acquiesce, everyone seemed to agree to his demands without any sort of protest. I just couldn't understand it, why everyone was looking the other way while we all suffered under this tyrant.

[00:06:21.400] - Oliver (Host)

So it's fair to say I didn't like this guy from the beginning of this holiday. Now, you may expect, listener, that this is going to be one of those stories where something profound, something deep and important happens, and I end up with some sort of admiration, or at least grudging respect, some unwillingly given respect for this man. But it's not that type of story, I'm afraid. I despised, I disliked this guy even more by the end of the holiday than I did at the beginning. The situation did not improve.

[00:06:53.020] - Oliver (Host)

However, it is true that with time, I became much less sure that it was all this guy's fault, actually. And that I will explain by the end of the episode. But basically, listener, I wouldn't expect, I wouldn't hope for some profound example of spiritual growth on my part if I were you. But why did I dislike this guy so much? And so quickly?

[00:07:17.350] - Oliver (Host)

Why did he get on my nerves like no one else before? Honestly, I wish I could tell you there was a single moment of such idiocy on his part that made my dislike for him justified, but there wasn't. I've spoken before on this podcast about the idea of thin slicing, how we form fast, instinctive judgments about people from very small signals. So I'm not going to go too deeply into the science again. But I do think it explains why this irritation arrived so quickly.

[00:07:48.620] - Oliver (Host)

Within a short space of time, my brain had already filed him under arrogant and annoying. And from that moment on, everything felt filtered through that lens. Psychologists often talk about how first impressions don't just sit there passively. They create a kind of confirmation loop. His louder moments felt to me to be louder.

[00:08:11.340] - Oliver (Host)

The boastful stories felt more exaggerated. And even totally neutral behaviour began to feel slightly abrasive. I ended up in a situation in which even things that he did that were totally normal and fair started to drive me absolutely crazy. In a group setting, especially on holiday when everyone is sharing space and energy, those early judgments, these thin slices, can quietly harden, strengthen into a narrative that becomes very difficult to challenge. And during the trip, I wasn't analysing my reaction very deeply.

[00:08:49.310] - Oliver (Host)

I just felt irritated, increasingly so. And I found myself collecting evidence to justify that irritation. Every loud comment confirmed what I already believed. Every exaggerated story felt like proof that my first impression had been right. It's strangely easy to build a private case, a collection of detailed complaints, against someone in your own mind, especially if you gradually sense that a few other people may seem to quietly share the same feeling.

[00:09:20.920] - Oliver (Host)

By the middle of this holiday, I wasn't asking why I felt this way anymore. I was mostly just rehearsing again and again all the reasons I thought my hatred was justified. If anything, I felt more certain with each passing day as if the problem was becoming clearer and clearer rather than more complicated. And then a sudden realisation arrived much more directly than I expected. He was talking as usual, confidently taking up space and steering the conversation.

[00:09:52.750] - Oliver (Host)

And instead of just feeling irritated, I suddenly thought: this is exactly the kind of behaviour I'm afraid of slipping into myself. Not quite as strongly perhaps, but close enough to feel uncomfortable. The certainty, the defensiveness over his opinions, the long rambling stories - these were all things I tried to monitor in myself, things I worry might make me seem self-important or exhausting to be around. And in that moment, it became hard to pretend that my reaction was completely objective because what I was criticising in him were traits I recognised uncomfortably as my own potential flaws.

[00:10:34.260] - Oliver (Host)

I disliked him so much because I was worried I was actually like him, that I had some similar characteristics. That didn't transform the situation into some neat lesson about empathy. I didn't suddenly warm to him or reinterpret the whole week as a misunderstanding, but the irritation maybe slightly shifted in texture. Because it felt less like I was observing a stranger's shortcomings and more like I was reacting to a distorted mirror image of myself. It was as if I felt especially offended because he was doing openly and unapologetically the very things I'm constantly trying to keep in check—talking too much, pushing my opinions forward, wanting to be heard.

[00:11:20.100] - Oliver (Host)

Seeing those behaviours exaggerated in someone else didn't produce empathy, but instead it produced irritation. And this makes sense to me. Psychologically, we tend to react strongly when another person embodies a version of ourselves we're trying not to become, and that we're worried about being without realising it. I think a clear example where I can explain exactly what I mean actually relates to learning a language. You might even feel this way yourself, even if you've never stopped to consider it before.

[00:11:53.640] - Oliver (Host)

I live in Spain. I speak Spanish all day, every day, and I have a language podcast in Spanish. I've never in my life had a Spanish speaker criticise my Spanish or my Spanish accent. Not even once. They hear that I sound foreign, of course, but the reaction to my speaking Spanish is always positive, encouraging, almost protective.

[00:12:14.920] - Oliver (Host)

And something similar and interesting happens with my Spanish podcast. I never get negative comments from Germans, French listeners, or Dutch learners about my pronunciation. When criticism does appear, it's almost entirely from other English speakers, and particularly British listeners. And that pattern, I think, is revealing. Because I suspect that part of the reason many of us English speakers feel uncomfortable hearing a British accent in Spanish is that it makes us feel self-conscious about how we might sound.

[00:12:47.860] - Oliver (Host)

It's not just about the other person. It's about the mirror they hold up to ourselves. By contrast, most English speakers would never dream of criticising a Spanish speaker's accent in English. Most. It just doesn't provoke insecurity and therefore irritation in the same way.

[00:13:06.020] - Oliver (Host)

If anything, we admire them for learning the language as adults and doing something brave, and their accent is evidence of that commitment. And I've noticed the same thing in Spanish speakers. Many Spaniards cringe when they hear a fellow Spanish person speaking English with a strong accent. But as I said, most of them don't cringe very much when they listen to me speaking Spanish with my British accent. That asymmetry says a lot about how our insecurities work.

[00:13:34.980] - Oliver (Host)

Insecurities are a form of projection, really. We often react more harshly to traits that feel uncomfortably close to our own identity. And specifically our own fears, our own perceived flaws. And maybe that's why this irritation can feel so intense. Really, this is the same idea we were told as children when teachers tried to explain bullying. Criticism often reveals more about the bully than the target.

[00:14:01.450] - Oliver (Host)

So returning to my irritating little friend, even though I still think we were fundamentally mismatched as people, I can't pretend my reaction was completely objective. Some of what annoyed me wasn't just about him. It was about what I recognised in myself. That doesn't mean the tension disappeared, or that we suddenly understood each other better, or that he and I were similar in every way.

[00:14:25.980] - Oliver (Host)

It just made me realise that irritation isn't always a clear judgement about someone else. Sometimes it's a reflection of our own insecurities. And knowing that doesn't magically fix the feeling or make it go away, but it does maybe make it a little more nuanced, a little more complicated, with shades of grey. So listener, maybe that's the strange thing about these anti-soulmate moments. Sometimes they do force us to see ourselves more clearly, but even knowing ourselves better doesn't always teach us to like someone else more.

[00:14:59.530] - Oliver (Host)

It's very possible for us to walk away thinking, Yes, fine. I understand what's going on in my head, but I still don't want to see this person ever again. And I speak from experience...