Confessions of a ‘Horoscope-Maniac’

Something that has always interested me is knowing about people’s hobbies — but my curiosity doesn’t stop there! Unfortunately, or fortunately, I use any means to find the reasons why they are obsessed with something. One of the obsessions fashionable in Venezuela is a sort of ‘Horoscope-Mania.’

It’s in vogue, in Venezuelan society, to ask each other about horoscopes. There are certain individuals who base their entire lives on the zodiac signs — and I searched for someone with this obsession. I failed at first, but then found someone indirectly: a friend of a friend served as a representative sample of the group. This girl agreed, at the insistence of my friend, to narrate the misfortunes she suffered because of her strange mania. Of course, she wrote her story anonymously — so here I have transcribed what was in her letter:

“I am of the Cancer sign, I am 19 years old. My name doesn’t matter and there’s no need to make one up either. I always had a special attraction to astrology — but it had never before become an obsession like it has now. The truth is that I do not know how or when this mania started. I guess it was because I wanted to know myself a little more. The problem was that I didn’t leave it at that — I widened the circle and began involving all my friends.

“The problem became enormous when I found myself with a Libran who had always surrounded himself with Cancerians. The fact is, our attraction started with a conversation about signs. We were both fans of our own signs! In other words, we were ‘Zodiac Narcissists!’

“As soon as I got home the first thing I did was look for my astrology book to see how my sign combined with his. The book said that after a powerful attraction a second stage would come, full of misunderstandings and bitter fighting until everything was over. What a tragic relationship awaited me! But — I preferred to give it a chance to develop, rather than sink into early regrets and abandon everything.

“Later things got bad. At a certain point I doubted myself so much that I came to think my predisposition was the one that was ending this strange relationship. It was too late for there to be communication between us. There were constant misunderstandings — and all in astrological terms.

“That relationship, there is no doubt, was not comprised of two human beings but of two ‘Zodiac Stereotypes.’ Sometimes I would leave his apartment, certain that as soon as he saw the position of the moon he would understand my mood that day.

“The end came after approximately 2 months — by which time we both hated each other’s sign. However, we continued to see each other quite frequently — to verify if a stable relationship had ever been possible between the two.”