I started really looking into this whole zodiac thing a while back, but it wasn’t because I just woke up one day interested in stars or whatever. It was pure necessity. I was seeing this girl, right? Absolute textbook Pisces. Totally dreamy, always spaced out, crying over sad movies and sometimes even a touching commercial jingle. She was all feeling, all fog, all the time. I’m a Cancer, you know, the crab. All feelings too, but I bottle everything up until I just go completely sideways and explode.
Everyone, and I mean everyone—her friends, my bartender, every stupid online quiz—told me this was the “soulmate connection.” Water signs, both sensitive, both intuitive, the ultimate emotional pairing, blah blah blah. I bought every single astrology book, paid $40 for some ridiculous online compatibility report, and convinced myself this was going to be the easiest relationship I ever had. I thought I had cracked the code just by knowing our signs.
The Practice of Living the “Perfect Match”
When it was good, it was like floating. We understood each other’s moods without saying anything. We could watch a movie and both start crying at the exact same moment. It felt deep. But man, that feeling of depth quickly turned into feeling like we were both drowning. The problem is, when two people are all intuition and no action, who is going to pay the bills or even remember where the car keys are?
- We were always swimming in feelings. Neither of us ever wanted to start a fight, but we both knew a fight was always brewing because we were so sensitive to every tiny shift in the room.
- She would disappear mentally when things got even slightly tough, retreating into her head, pretending everything was fine or just sleeping it off.
- I would latch onto her like a barnacle, needing constant reassurance, which she couldn’t give because she was already emotionally maxed out trying to handle her own fog.
- We’d have these huge, messy, emotional blowouts that felt like a tidal wave, then immediately makeup and act like nothing happened five minutes later. It was exhausting drama on loop.
The whole thing felt like a perfect match when we were just sitting on the couch on a rainy Saturday, not talking, existing in the quiet. But life doesn’t stay quiet, does it? My true practice, my real test, didn’t happen until my whole professional life fell apart a few years later. That’s when you really see what a partner is made of.
I was working at a small construction firm, decent supervisor gig, good money. Then the owner, without warning, decided to sell the whole damn thing to a massive corporate outfit from out of state. I lost my job overnight. Severance was a complete joke, and suddenly I’m sitting at home all day, watching the savings drain out faster than you can say “budget.”
The Failure to Launch
That’s when the pairing went from soulmate fantasy to absolute train wreck. I was an emotional mess, freaking out over bills and talking about moving back into my Mom’s basement. I needed her to be the practical one, the rock, the planner for once. I needed a plan of action, a way forward. She just kept saying, “Don’t worry, honey, it’ll be okay, the universe has a plan,” while somehow managing to rack up huge charges on a new credit card for crystals and essential oils. I needed her to deal with a debt collector; she needed to meditate on her feelings.
I was moody, crying over spreadsheets; she was escaping to some fantasy world where money wasn’t real and problems just solved themselves. I criticized her for being impractical, and she accused me of being a cold-hearted worrier who killed her vibe. We were both bleeding, but neither of us knew first aid. We just kept making the wounds bigger by being mad at the other person for not being what we needed them to be.
The “best match” is complete garbage when facing reality. It was like two wounded puppies trying to support a collapsing house. We were both too sensitive, too much in our heads, dwelling on the sadness and the fear. We absolutely got each other’s deep, dark feelings, but neither of us had the muscle to fix anything or build anything solid. It wasn’t productive. We were just two ships sinking together, holding hands all the way down, convinced that because we felt so much for each other, it had to work. It didn’t. I split when I finally got that new job in logistics and realized I desperately needed someone who dealt with actual reality, not just dreams and feelings. That’s why I stopped reading those stupid compatibility reports. I learned the hard way
