Types of soulmates, explained

The types of soulmates people talk about most are the romantic soulmate, the friendship soulmate, the karmic soulmate and the twin flame, with a brief “stranger” or past-life soulmate added in some lists. That is the common core. Beyond it, the lists disagree: some count three types, some five, some six, one we read counts ten. None of them is the true or ancient list. They come from modern spiritual and lifestyle writing, and each writer draws the lines a little differently. This article maps the types that come up most often, says where each idea comes from, and shows where the lists agree and where they part ways.

Why lists of soulmate types disagree

If you search for the types of soulmates, the questions Google shows next to the results ask about three types, four, five and six. That is a good clue that nobody is working from one source.

The word itself is broad

Merriam-Webster defines a soulmate as “a close friend or romantic partner with whom one has a unique deep connection based on mutual understanding and acceptance.” Its earliest known use, the dictionary says, is in an 1822 letter by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Cambridge leans toward romance: “someone, usually your romantic or sexual partner, who you have a special relationship with.”

So even the dictionaries allow for friends as well as partners. Once a word covers that much ground, it invites people to divide it up, and they divide it up in different ways.

The lists come from writers, not a tradition

We read the lists that ranked for “types of soulmates” in Google’s US results on September 29, 2026. Here is how they count:

• Five types, in a list published by GhanaWeb in February 2024 (credited to classfmonline.com) and in near-identical form on WeMystic: the friendship soulmate, the wrecking ball soulmate, the lover or affair soulmate, the complete stranger, and the divine or perfect love soulmate.
• Six types, in a 2023 Times Now article by Kanakanjali Roy: soul partners, soul ties, past-life soul mates, karmic soul mates, romantic soul mates and the twin flame.
• Ten types, on Life Architekture, by life coach Bayu Prihandito (2024): the romantic partner, the mirror soul, the companion soul, the healing soul, the karmic connection, the twin flame, the creative mate, the protector, the childhood connection and the wisdom guide.
• Three categories, in Psychology Today, where psychologist Rachel Allyn wrote in 2023 about twin flame, karmic and soulmate relationships. She was careful to add: “While this is out of the scientific realm, the language and concepts may be helpful to anyone who has had a life-changing relationship.”

Because two of the five-type pages share almost the same text, they are best read as one list travelling, not two confirmations. The point stands either way: the count depends on who is writing.

Where the lists overlap

Type	Also called	Appears in
Romantic soulmate	Divine love, perfect love, romantic partner	All four lists
Friendship soulmate	Companion soul, the friend, soul partner	Five-type, six-type (loosely) and ten-type lists; Allyn’s soulmate category includes friends
Karmic soulmate	Karmic connection, wrecking ball (a close cousin)	Six-type and ten-type lists, Allyn; the five-type list’s wrecking ball plays the same role
Twin flame	“Mirror souls”, in believers’ own words	Six-type and ten-type lists, Allyn
Stranger or past-life soulmate	Complete stranger, past-life soul mate	Five-type and six-type lists
Soul tie		Six-type list

If you want a single sentence to take away: romance, friendship, karma and the twin flame are the four ideas nearly everyone includes, and everything else is a writer’s own addition.

The types people name most often

These descriptions are what believers and writers say about each type. They are not findings, and none of them tells you who a particular person in your life is.

The romantic soulmate

This is the meaning most people start with, and the one closest to Cambridge’s definition. The five-type list calls it the divine love soulmate and describes it as the one that combines the rest: familiarity, deep friendship and lasting love. Life Architekture’s version describes a bond “built on mutual respect, a profound bond, and a sense of feeling at home.” In Psychology Today, Allyn writes that, compared with twin flames and karmic partners, “soulmates are conceptualized as more complementary and flowing. They tend to be long-lasting and enduring.”

The friendship soulmate

Merriam-Webster’s definition already makes room for this one: “a close friend.” In the five-type list, the friendship soulmate is the person you can tell everything to without being judged, and it is the type the list says stays. Life Architekture calls it the companion soul, “the forever friend.” Allyn’s point that “we can have many karmic or soulmate relationships (friends, colleagues, neighbors, romantic partners)” puts friends inside the soulmate idea too.

The karmic soulmate

A karmic partner, in spiritual writing, is someone you meet to settle something unfinished. Allyn describes it this way: “You come into each other’s life to settle unfinished business and learn important lessons … These are typically tumultuous relationships that aren’t meant to last.” The five-type list’s wrecking ball soulmate plays a similar part, the relationship that shakes everything up.

Clinicians read the same pattern differently. In a 2024 Cleveland Clinic article, psychotherapist Natacha Duke says a karmic relationship is “not a clinical term with specific signs or symptoms,” and that in psychology “we would talk about these situations as dysfunctional or unhealthy relationships.” Both descriptions can be true at once: one is a belief about meaning, the other a description of how the relationship behaves.

The twin flame

In New Age writing, a twin flame is one soul said to be split into two people. Wikipedia’s article describes it as “the belief that a single soul can be split into two bodies” and notes that it “has no documented scientific basis.” The idea is usually traced to Marie Corelli’s 1886 novel A Romance of Two Worlds, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet wrote about soulmates and twin flames in a 1998 book. Allyn notes the common view that “we only have one twin flame in a lifetime.” We compare the two ideas side by side in twin flame vs soulmate, including the stages believers describe.

The stranger or past-life soulmate

Some lists include a soulmate you meet only briefly. The five-type list describes a stranger on a flight or at a party who says something you needed to hear, with the feeling “Oh! I recognize you!” and adds that “if you believe in past lives,” this is someone from your past. The six-type list has a similar entry, the past-life soul mate. This is the most openly spiritual type on the map, since it rests on a belief in reincarnation.

Soul ties and kindred spirits

Two related terms often sit next to these lists. A soul tie, as Psych Central describes it, is believed to be a spiritual and emotional connection that develops between people, and “these ties can vary in their nature, being either healthy or unhealthy.” A kindred spirit is simpler: Merriam-Webster defines it as “a person with similar interests or concerns.” Nobody needs a belief system for that one.

Romantic and platonic soulmates

One question sits under all the lists: does a soulmate have to be a partner? The dictionary answer is no. Merriam-Webster’s “close friend or romantic partner” covers both, and most of the lists we read include at least one non-romantic type. The difference between them is in how people use the word. Cambridge’s “usually your romantic or sexual partner” describes the everyday sense; the lists stretch it to friends, strangers and teachers.

That stretch can be comforting. A friend who has known you for twenty years may fit the word as well as anyone. It also explains why “types” lists are so popular: they let people name more than one important relationship without ranking them.

How widespread the soulmate belief is

The core idea is common. In a 2011 Marist Poll of 1,018 US adults, 73% said they believed in the idea of soul mates, “two people who are destined to be together.” That poll asked about the romantic, destined sense, not about types, and it is now old data. We did not find a newer poll that asked the same question.

One soulmate or many?

The oldest story behind the word points the other way from the type lists. In Plato’s Symposium, the comic playwright Aristophanes tells a myth in which humans were split in two, and “each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half.” Plato never uses the word soulmate, and the story is told by a character in the dialogue, not as Plato’s own view, but it is the picture most people carry: one other half, somewhere.

The type lists do the opposite. They spread the idea across many people, a friend here, a teacher there, a stranger on a train. The twin flame is where the two meet again: in twin-flame writing, as Allyn summarizes it, there is only one. That tension, one person or many, is a big part of why the lists never settle on a number.

How to read any list of soulmate types

A few questions help with any list you come across, including this one.

• Who wrote it? The lists we read came from a lifestyle news page, a spiritual site, a life coach and a psychologist. Each brings its own purpose.
• Does it say it is a belief? Allyn says her categories are “out of the scientific realm.” Times Now adds a disclaimer that its article is “for educational purposes only and not intended as professional advice.” A list that presents itself as fact is claiming more than it can show.
• Does it describe, or does it instruct? A description of a type is harmless. A list that tells you how to act toward a real person because of the type is doing something else, and that is the point where the clinicians quoted below would ask you to slow down.

Using the types without being used by them

The lists are a vocabulary, and a vocabulary can be useful. Allyn’s point about the language being “helpful to anyone who has had a life-changing relationship” is a fair way to hold them. Cleveland Clinic’s article makes the other half of the point: “There isn’t any harm in believing in karmic relationships, soul mates, past lives or twin flames,” but, as Duke puts it, “the harm comes if those ideas convince you to get into or stay in situations that aren’t benefiting you.”

If you like to picture things rather than list them, our portrait works the same way. You answer seven quick questions and receive an imagined face in pencil, for entertainment and reflection, not a prediction. You can start the quiz whenever you like, or read signs you met your soulmate for the signs people describe once they think they have found one.