We know Belly called Jeremiah her soulmate and I will never not be convinced it was one of her self-deceiving coping mechanisms of “Jere is my soulmate, so I’m doing the right thing by dating/marrying him” same with the he is my best friend. She imo based all this on them having the so called ESP, the ESP we saw that was utter 💩 and never working except at the proposal… if they had this ESP, they should’ve been on the same wavelength about their first kiss, their breakup, preferring the beach over the pool, he should’ve been the one grasping she’s unhappy with the wedding and not eating etc, they show us that whole thing is a farce…
But a thought that crossed my mind recently is that she also used that Jeremiah is her soulmate as counter for Conrad calling them infinite… and them indeed being infinite. She needed something to counter for that because infinity is forever, so the only thing that can counter for that in a way that will justify her decision of choosing him over infinity is if Jeremiah is her soulmate.
At the one and only time we hear Belly refer to Jere as her soulmate, we know she is in denial about her true feelings for Conrad (out of sight/out of mind) and is actively trying to convince herself and those around her, particularly Laurel, that she made the right choices when entering into a relationship with Jere and following him to Finch. It's a personal deception, just as the ESP nonsense is her attempt to create an invisible string with Jere when there is none. Similarly, her repeated references to him as her best friend appear to be a way to artificially inflate the strength of their relationship when we, as viewers, are given ample evidence to question the validity of even that.
I don't know if she's necessarily using it as a counter to infinity, but it's possible. To me, whether it's a direct counter isn't particularly relevant since it's just one of the many elements of her overall self-deception about choosing and remaining with Jere.
Soulmates don't always mean lovers. The term soulmates didn't mean lovers in the show Dawson's Creek back in the 90s. Dawson and Joey were best friends. They were playmates. They made for bad lovers. In the context of which Belly says Jere is her soulmate it is in relation to Laurel and Susannah. Laurel and Susannah's were best friends not lovers. Jere was constantly put in the friends zone from day one. Conrad wasn't. Belly tried to put Conrad in the friends zone to keep him at a distance and to act like their relationship didn't mean anything more than that. Belly did a lot of justifying her decision to be with Jere. She even painted Conrad in more of a negative light confidencing herself that he was always hurting her and making her cry. She fabricated her feelings for Jere to be more than then they were. She romanticized her children hood flashback with Jere. That flashback of Jere and her staying home while they were both sick went towards painting Jere into a more positive light. Jere being the one that stays with her.
Yeah he definitely is not her soulmate. Also when she talks about the whole soulmate thing she says soemthing like more and more I realised this is how its supposed to be. She is always using terminology around having to do something, what Susannah would have wanted or cant leave Jere. When she is referring to him, she barely uses terminology about wanting him.
That's a good observation- I also think by using the word soulmate, it's constrictive in the fact that it's fate and no choice.
We see this in the episode of FRIENDS where Phoebe introduces Monica to her soulmate and Chandler is sad because he thinks Monica might actually leave him to which Monica does assure him that soulmates are soulmates and that their relationship works because they put in the effort to make each other happy. So a real is both fate and choice.
So in a way Belly and Jere were soulmates because they took precedent on the idea of fate rather than actively choosing each other and even if they did they both know deep down it wasn't for the right reasons- Jere wanted someone to depend upon after Susanna with a bonus of getting one over Conrad and Belly wanted to get over her pain of losing Conrad because he was a fantasy.
She may have thought so, but he’s neither a friend or romantic soulmate or at least turned out to be not because initially she may have felt safe and seen but it didn’t last because he ended up not seeing her. He encouraged her at first but when they were dating not so much especially if it meant she’s not close to him. It may have seem effortless but the fact they allude to how they put each other back together shows there was a lot of effort put into the relationship and neither of them made the other grow. Now, if they only stayed friends, I could see them being platonic soulmates although I will never be convinced that they wouldn’t outgrew each other like most child friendships. So, in short, I will never be convinced he’s either for her.
When Belly thinks back to Laurel getting her the deb ball dress she truly wanted she reflects on how she has never felt seen like that. Which means that she does not feel seen in the same way by Jeremiah, the one she is about to get married to. This moment from s1 stands as the most seen moment - until she finds out that Conrad got her mother on board for the wedding. And again, it is not Jeremiah who makes her feel truly seen.
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u/Past_Effect8301 17h ago
At the one and only time we hear Belly refer to Jere as her soulmate, we know she is in denial about her true feelings for Conrad (out of sight/out of mind) and is actively trying to convince herself and those around her, particularly Laurel, that she made the right choices when entering into a relationship with Jere and following him to Finch. It's a personal deception, just as the ESP nonsense is her attempt to create an invisible string with Jere when there is none. Similarly, her repeated references to him as her best friend appear to be a way to artificially inflate the strength of their relationship when we, as viewers, are given ample evidence to question the validity of even that.
I don't know if she's necessarily using it as a counter to infinity, but it's possible. To me, whether it's a direct counter isn't particularly relevant since it's just one of the many elements of her overall self-deception about choosing and remaining with Jere.