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For every soul there is a soulmate, made pleasing to the other, driven together by forces beyond themselves, overlooking of whatever it is that irks others.

In my final years of secondary school, I earned the epithet Billy Nomates, known for wandering around the school grounds all alone. In the end, I felt so dejected that after my final GCSE exam, I said goodbye to no one and silently left that school, never to look back.

The following autumn, I started at sixth form college, hoping for a clean break. But, in truth, nothing much changed. Now I just found myself on the far periphery of another group of peers, similarly incapable of forging friendships. Soon I’d gravitate towards other strangers, likewise thinking themselves out of place.

One of my tutors picked up that I had extremely low mood and referred me to the college counsellor. After working with me for a few sessions, she offered to video me to show me how I looked to others. We agreed and in due course I watched the hideous sight of that anxious and mournful kid, ever so self-conscious and uncomfortable.

But, really, I didn’t need to see myself on a television screen to understand how I was perceived by others, because they just came out and said it. Some would openly to say exactly what they thought of me to my face. Others would suffice loudly castigating me with unflattering monikers within earshot.

Later, when acquaintances attempted to introduce me to another in a nightclub, my ears would just ring to scornful denunciation. “You must be joking,” they’d scoff, spitting repudiation in my face. But hey, at least I was granted entry to that venue. At university, I’d be barred access at the door. A blessing in disguise.

It was at university that one of my flatmates once accidentally complained, “Even you’re more popular than me.” He too saw something in me that by rights required that I be rejected by all. How awful it must have seemed to him that even I had managed to establish a few close relationships by then.

My relationships have always been like that: close and few. I have never had masses of friends; mostly I keep the company of those older than me and more mature, capable of accepting me just the way I am. I avoid large gatherings if I can, preferring quietude to raucous tumult.

It was in those moments at university that some of my most long-lasting relationships were formed. To this day I consider those who took me under their wing in those early days along the path my closest companions, however distantly we are separated geographically and by social circumstance.

But others I encountered in those early days were less accommodating of my presence. Various groups of Muslims soon anathematised me, ascribing hypocrisy and insincerity, choosing to believe that my faith was not real, or else misguided according to whichever sectarian definition seemed so important in those days.

Once more I would leave a seat of learning in low mood, distraught to forever be pushed to the periphery, rejected by nearly all that encountered me. But, of course, the problem was my mindset. What did it matter if I was unpopular, if my relationships with the few were unbreakable? Why look to the crowd, when you have devoted companions near at hand?

In life we realise there are the kindred spirits, true brothers in faith and close companions. In time, all of these are driven together, forever bonded regardless of the challenges life presents. How and why: these are tales of the unseen. Gifts deposited on our timeline, to help carry us home.

Certainly, for every soul there is a soulmate, made pleasing to the other, driven together by forces beyond themselves, overlooking of whatever it is that irks others. In time, these souls are drawn together, as if by magnetic forces, the conditions made fertile, circumstances just right. Even if our patience is severely tested along the way, nothing is accidental. When the time is right, those souls will find one another, often when it is least expected.

For me, that moment came just as I was preparing to vacate my lodgings in west London. My temporary job in Maidenhead had just been made permanent, and hoping to minimise my daily commute, I had a flat lined up near to my workplace. I was all set, I thought, readying my possessions to move.

No, but it wasn’t to be. That flat fell through, the existing tenant deciding not to move out after all. Still, that turned out to be another blessing in disguise. Just as I was casting my net wider, in search of affordable housing in Slough, Hayes and Southall, I made new acquaintances in my locality.

Had my plans not fallen through, would I ever have met that fellow at the mosque that sunny spring afternoon, which prompted him to spontaneously invite me over for lunch? Would we have had that conversation on a bus hurtling west along the Uxbridge Road? And, ultimately, would I ever have found myself sitting in his flat on the other side of the park which separated us a few days later, having a conversation with my soulmate over dinner?

When a thing is meant to be, it is made so, however unlikely or inexplicable. In the days before we met, she too had been making plans of her own. Neither of us had planned anything like this. It’s just how it came together.

Unbeknownst to either of us, we both first had to embrace the faith on the same weekend three years earlier, then move to the same locality, and make the same acquaintances. Only then would the One bring these two souls together, and nothing could prevent that, neither timidity nor intimidation.

How strange that soulmates are capable of seeing in each other what to others is imperceivable. How strange that even if three-thousand kilometres had once separated them, if two souls are meant to meet, they will meet. Kindred spirits will always find their companions, eventually.