I never really bought into the zodiac crap, to be honest. It always felt like a flimsy excuse, a distraction people used for why things went south. I used to just roll my eyes hard whenever someone brought up their Mercury in retrograde nonsense. But then, about a year ago, I hit a massive wall. I was laid off, moved out of the city, and just sat there, staring at the suburban walls of my childhood bedroom. I needed something concrete to do, something I could measure, even if the premise was totally goofy. So, I decided I would try to prove the whole astrology thing was absolute rubbish by using the only real-world data I had access to: my own contact list and personal history.
The Tedious Process of the Great Data Scrape
The first step was a killer, seriously. I opened up my dusty old phone and started scrolling. I pulled up every single human being I had a number for. Then came the next massive step: I used an online calculator to check everyone’s birthdays. This part alone took me nearly four solid days. My eyes were burning, and my fingers felt like wood from all the tapping. I separated the list into people I knew had been in a relationship, and people I knew well enough to ask about their relationship history.
I went through that entire contact database again and highlighted every single person who was either a Cancer or a Pisces. The number was surprisingly high; it felt like everyone I knew was a water sign. I then dumped all the birthdays and relationship statuses into a ridiculous-looking spreadsheet. This wasn’t about my love life; it was about checking the relationship dynamics of people I knew who fit this supposedly “perfect, harmonious” cosmic match.
Establishing the “Stickiness Factor” and Metrics
I needed a simple way to score a relationship. How do you really measure compatibility? You can’t, not precisely. I settled on what I called the “Stickiness Factor.” It was a simple scale: 1 to 10. A 1 meant they split within weeks or months and it was a nasty mess. A 10 meant they were basically welded together, still going strong, long-term, through thick and thin. I started reaching out, pinging people I hadn’t spoken to in ages, asking around about their old flame’s signs, their exes, and their current situations. It was super awkward, let me tell you. I had to explain to my old coworker why I was suddenly asking about her neighbor’s dating profile history. Total drama just to get the basic facts.
I cross-referenced the Cancer dates with the Pisces dates. I identified nine pairs I could confidently track who were or had been in a serious relationship. I calculated the average “Stickiness Factor” for those nine pairs. The average score came out to a solid 7.8. That’s actually pretty high. It was way better than the general average of my other random, mixed-sign pairings, which usually hovered around a shaky 5 or 6.
Finding the True Benchmark: Their Highest Compatibility Score
But the real surprise, the couple that completely demolished my attempt to disprove the whole theory, was the longest-running Cancer/Pisces couple I was tracking. My buddy, Dave (a Cancer), and his wife, Laura (a Pisces). They have been together since before I even moved to the city, like fifteen years now. I always thought they were just a fluke, just super lucky and vibing well, but I decided to look closer.
I visited them for a whole long weekend, pretending I was just there to hang out. I sat and watched them interact, listening to every little thing they said. What I saw was insane. They don’t argue like normal couples. They just know when the other one is off. He starts a sentence, and she finishes it, often agreeing with a small, quiet nod. When she feels stressed about her crazy job, he just prepares her complicated comfort food casserole without her even mentioning it. When he wants to pull the plug and move to a new place on a whim, she just starts packing his golf clubs without any hesitation. They operate in this weird, completely shared bubble of emotional understanding.
I assigned them a definite 10 out of 10 on the “Stickiness Factor.” They were the peak. They showed me what the theoretical highest percentage actually looks like in a messy, real-life partnership. It wasn’t perfect, they had their bad moments, but the core connection was totally unshakeable and deep. I went home, crunched the numbers again, taking Dave and Laura as the absolute living proof. My little data set yelled a loud signal. That one pair, they hit the ceiling. They are the highest compatibility score I ever found in my contact database. I looked at my own messed-up sign, slammed the laptop shut, and started looking up my own natal chart for the first time ever. It was that profound of a flip.
