BLOOMINGTON, IN—The deep and abiding love shared by soulmates Andrew Colton and Brenda Smolensk ended Monday, when Colton broke up with Smolensk to go out with new soulmate Mandy Damrush.
“Mandy and I are so perfect together, I almost can’t believe it,” a beaming Colton said Monday. “It’s like we’re the same person. Even though we just met, I feel like we’re soulmates, like I’ve known her my whole life.”
From June 17, 1996 until 2:15 p.m. Monday, Colton and former soulmate Smolensk were inseparable, describing themselves as “unwhole without each other.” In a poem he gave to Smolensk in June to commemorate the third anniversary of their meeting, Colton described their relationship as “like one mind in two bodies, ever understanding and ever clear.”
According to Colton, Smolensk was the love of his life at the time.
“Brenda and I were a perfect match,” Colton said. “We would go on long walks and talk for hours about literally any subject. I would start a sentence, fumble for a word, and Brenda would finish for me. Or she could just look at me and say out loud what I was thinking.”
Added Colton: “Fortunately, Mandy doesn’t interrupt me or do any of that annoying stuff Brenda did.”
Colton also fondly recalled his last Christmas with Smolensk. “One of my gifts to her was a Thighmaster, and she got all excited and asked, ’How did you know I wanted to work on my thighs?’” Colton said. “How did I know? Well, I would often see her standing in front of her full-length mirror and, just from the way she looked at herself, I could tell she was unhappy about all the dimples in her thighs. That’s just the sort of deep understanding we had for each other.”
Colton then slipped his arm around Damrush and said, “Mandy has got incredible thighs.”
But despite the fact that the pair’s relationship seemed made in heaven, Colton and Smolensk gradually grew apart.
“As great as Brenda was, we somehow fell into a rut. Toward the end, we didn’t do anything together. We didn’t even talk very much,” said Colton, recalling his last days with Smolensk. “On the other hand, Mandy and I already get along so well, it’s like we have a telepathic bond—neither of us even has to say a word. Mandy truly is the only person on the planet I can see myself with. What are the odds we would meet?”
Colton’s friends have already accepted his newer, even more ideal companion into their circle.
“Mandy is so incredibly wonderful,” said David Rudd, Colton’s best friend and roommate. “I mean, I thought Brenda was the only woman in the world for Andrew, but now it’s clear that it’s Mandy.”
“I know it sounds like a cliche, but Andrew and Brenda were so right for each other, it seemed like it was, like, cosmic or something,” longtime friend Marc Elliot said. “Believe me, the last thing anyone expected was that Andrew would actually find a soulmate who was even better.”
“Good for him,” Elliot added.
Despite having moved on, Colton stressed the special place his ex-soulmate will always have in his heart: “I want to be clear that I’m not trying to bad-mouth Brenda at all. I have nothing but good things to say about her. What we had was truly once-in-a-lifetime. But what I have now is even more once-in-a-lifetime.”
Colton said he will always be thankful for meeting Smolensk, as he learned much from her.
“When fate led me to Brenda, I was a wounded person, afraid I would never again be able to trust a woman. After all, my heart had been broken by three previous soulmates,” Colton said. “But Brenda taught me that I could find true love again. And you know what? That’s exactly what I’ve done.”
