Are soul mates real?

After the weekend I had, I'm pondering the question of whether or not soul mates exist. I'm a romantic at heart and I want to believe that there is one person that completes us. Sure, there's lots of people that we could be okay with, but is there more than one person that we could be absolutely perfect for and that could be perfect for us? And how do we know we are living up to our potential? What if we are with someone we think is our soul mate because things are okay, but we could really be living in a different realm had we waited just a little bit longer for the "one"? 

Or maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe I'm living in a fantasy world and making things much more complicated than necessary. Perhaps I'll end up alone because of it. What I do know is that I won't end up settling for someone that, yes, I'm happy with, but that doesn't light a fire in my soul. I want someone that I can just look at and know exactly what they don't have to say. I want a connection that exists very rarely and that can't be broken- not over time or for any other reason. There, of course, will be bumps and sometimes we might even have to let that person go. Maybe for a short time or maybe forever. 

But then what? What happens after we've loved so fiercely that it makes any other love seem dim, no matter how bright it may actually be?