Searching the Stars

A friend of mine recently got dumped, and I’ve been solicited for dating advice. I guess I should preface this with the fact that most of my friends are male, and most of them are younger than me, so whenever one of them gets dumped the conversation goes the same way: “Why do I always get dumped? You’re a girl. And you’re older. And you have a PhD. What’s going on?” And so as not to be blacklisted from my little group for sounding too academic, I resort to pop culture to solve these problems. My latest answer: astrology.

I’m not the biggest believer in superstitious things, but astrology seems to fall into the same category as stereotypes for me – they exist for a reason because of patterns of behavior, and while not definitive, can offer some clarity and piece of mind (no matter how frivolous). I often find interesting patterns across astrological signs, to the point that I can often guess a student's sign just by a series of classroom behaviors (yes, I know how weird that sounds). So, I looked up my friend’s sign and found out a lot of interesting things about myself in the process.

There are lots of theories about this stuff – in general, the basic zodiac signs (or Sun signs) have matches that work and matches that don’t. I’ve always looked to these, but in my quest to find some fun conversation starters, I stumbled onto a piece of information I hadn’t considered before: while your Sun sign can determine basic attraction and compatibility, the sign that Venus occupied when you were born is actually a stronger predictor of intimate compatibility. Who knew?! So, I decided to look up my Venus sign, and lo and behold, it’s in Virgo. Which explains my obsession with Virgos for pretty much all of my 20s. Even though Virgo and my Sun sign are totally incompatible. The universe seriously screwed me on this one!!

Anyhow, it’s a fun little distraction if you’re bored at work and ready for it to be the holiday season already. Check it out and see if you learn anything about yourself and your patterns of attraction (good, bad or indifferent)...and of course, feel free to comment!