Love Stories is a series about love in all its forms, with a new essay published each day through the week of Valentine’s Day. This year we are focusing on the astrological forces that may or may not be ruling your love life. Is your romantic destiny written in the stars?
The morning after the first time I had sex with Mike, I noticed a pair of heart-shaped glasses abandoned on a Brooklyn sidewalk on my walk home. They were glittery and pink, a novelty trinket from a birthday or bachelorette party. The arms of the glasses had snapped off, and the lenses popped out, but the heart-shaped frames were still intact. At the time, it felt like foreshadowing—but of love or future heartbreak, I wasn’t sure. I took a photo and posted it to Instagram without context. (It was 2014, and that’s what we did back then.)
Over a decade later now, if I scroll far back enough, I can still see that photo of sunglasses and remember that first night with Mike—the floral Urban Outfitters miniskirt I was wearing, the cigarettes-and-beer taste of his mouth, the summer humidity in the air, the way he slept curled up behind me. We were on and off and on and off for years. He was the first person I really fell hard for and the first person who left me truly heartbroken, crying on the subway at all hours and combing social media late at night searching for hints of what he was doing in his life without me. Mike was a Sagittarius: adventurous, open-minded, playful, spontaneous, and reluctant to commit to anything. Turns out I’m not so good with Sagittariuses, but I always fall for them.
Somehow, I always end up dating exactly the wrong sign. My dating history is filled with Sagittariuses and Aquariuses, which are both supposed to clash with my Scorpio self. (And although things might feel blissful at first, eventually the fall always comes.) Astrologers have explained why I’m drawn to them: My Moon, Venus, and Mercury are in Sagittarius, so it tracks that would I feel a connection with the star sign, even if their noncommittal nature is at odds with my intense Scorpio Sun and stability-craving Virgo Rising. As for the aloof Aquarius: When paired with a Scorpio, the two form a harsh, tense square—the astrological term for a 90-degree angle, associated with conflict and challenge—which equates to both interpersonal tension and sexual tension.
For many years, my dating life followed a similar astrological pattern. After Mike, there was Chris, the sweet Aquarius photographer who introduced me to his friends on our second date and eventually stopped making time for me one-on-one. Stephen, a Brit a decade my senior, was next; he read all the same books as me but his hot-and-cold dating style outpaced our intellectual connection. One week he wanted to see me four days in a row, then not at all the next. He was an Aquarius too. My first date with David, a friend of a friend and another Sagittarius, lasted for hours, going from dive bar to dive bar and then to his friend’s picnic to my friend’s birthday party. We didn’t want the day together to end. But as the months went by, I realized I still wasn’t quite over that last Aquarius, and for once it was me who couldn’t commit. When, in my late 20s, I changed my dating-app settings from “men” to “everyone,” there was Amanda, a Sagittarius who took me to her favorite spot by the waterfront and then ghosted me after we hooked up.
