The Friendship Sign

I once had a friend named Mara who was very into astrology. She would analyze all of our personalities by our astrological signs. Our friend, Amber, was an Aries - a fire sign, and that explained her quick temper and the passionate way that she pursued everything in life. She didn’t just like our school, she loved it so much she volunteered all sorts of clinics and projects so that she could land herself a job there soon after our graduation. Doreen was an Aquarius, a water sign. That’s why she was so hippy dippy and always needed to be outside hiking, jogging, kayaking or snowboarding. She was a free spirit. Crystal, a Virgo, was the perfect lawyer-to-be: organized, goal oriented, detailed and critical. When she worked out she would whisper to herself, “Faster, fatface! You wanna lose that fat ass you need to make it burn!” But for myself, a Scorpio, I wasn’t so convinced.

Scorpios are supposed to be mysterious; you never know what they are thinking. Ok, I can go with that. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not...you’ll just never know. Scorpios hate dishonesty and they can be very suspicious. Well, yes, I do hate dishonesty, but doesn’t everybody? And I am very suspicious, cautiously eying people sitting in parked cars on my street, but don’t the police tell you to do that? I declared defiantly that about half of the personality traits ascribed to Scorpios apply to me and half could apply to anybody. Furthermore, half of the characteristics of any other sign could apply to me too. For example, Leos are warm hearted and love life and laughter. Yes, that’s me! I embrace my friends warmly and am quick to accept new friends. And I love life and laughter!

No, honey, Mara would correct me. It’s not that everybody loves life and laughter, it’s that this is a particular trait that would characterize a person so that it could be said to define them. Everybody loves life and laughter, but a Leo loves it so much that it drives their motivations and frames the methods they use to pursue their goals. It’s more like the way they move through life. You may enjoy life and laughter but you really aren’t the center of every party - no offense, sweetie. Take Derek for example. He’s at every party, the last to leave at every kegger and always laughing louder and longer than everyone else. I don’t know what his sign is, but I would bet he’s a Leo.

Mara memorized the attributes of all the astrology signs, rattling them off as easily as a literature professor listing the characters of Shakespearean plays. She understood ascendant signs and how they affected first impressions. She also comprehended the Chinese zodiac and could weave together how your Chinese zodiac sign related to your astrology sign to influence your personality profile. She dabbled in tarot cards for a bit, but didn’t find their prognostications as rewarding as the twelve astrology signs.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t make heads or tails of these personality characteristics. When I would read their descriptions, all the signs would swim together. None of them stood out to me as being definable in any way. They were just a string of adjectives, and somewhat repetitive at that. I couldn’t even finish one page of her encyclopedia of astrology without my eyes glazing over.

But when a group of our girlfriends got together to drink and talk late into the night, she would regale us with her astrological analyses of our friends, lovers and acquaintances. The world seemed so neat and understandable when she broke them down into twelve basic personality types. Everyone could be understood within these twelve signs and complexity could be attributed to ascendant signs and Chinese zodiac influence. She would meet someone and comment afterwards that they were so clearly Libra when they couldn’t make up their minds with regard to their summer internship plans. She would speculate about the signs of our favorite professors. Mostly Virgos and Capricorns, of course. And the conversations dissecting our love lives were endless. The hottie at the bar was a fiery, passionate Aries until the third date when she realized that Aries was just his ascendant sign and he was a really an overbearing Leo. The problem with my on again, off again boyfriend was that he was an Aquarius and just couldn’t commit to anybody. Mara’s here again, gone again boyfriend, on the other hand, was a Gemini who was just going back and forth between the two sides of his twin personality.

We would tease out those conversations over and over again, rehashing every incident with my boyfriend, analyzing the comments of Mara’s boyfriend, and drooling over hot new men who came our way. Mara put up with my snarky comments and disbelieving eyebrows. Under the tutelage of her rolling eyeballs, I slowly learned to distinguish a Taurus from an Aries. Those were the conversations that we laughed so hard that we farted. We talked until we were exhausted and incomprehensible. Nobody wanted to fall asleep and let the conversation end. In those late night talks our friendships expanded with the rising of the constellations.