Emotional vulnerability and the risk of heartbreak aren’t enough to deter most people from seeking out companions. Indeed, romantic yearning is considered a central part of the human experience. So why were so many of us created to feel unfulfilled without ‘another half’? According to a myth by the comic playwright Aristophanes, recounted in Plato’s Symposium, humans were once two-bodied creatures until they challenged the gods. Zeus, angered by humans overstepping their bounds, sliced them all in two, leaving us destined to yearn for partnership.
-aeon
