For those who believe in it, astrology can be a powerful tool for introspection and self-knowledge — or you can use it to talk shit about your ex and obsess over your crush. Journey with us as we do both, and then head to the comments to live your truth.
Vanessa Friedman, Community Editor
You know what, my main takeaway from this exercise is that I do not understand air signs AT ALL, and I would say of all the air signs I do not understand, I understand Aquariuses the least. Hot but intimidating. Smart but inscrutable. Hilarious but under the radar. Laneia is an Aquarius. Do you see what I’m saying here? Laneia is so hot, y’all.
Drew Burnett Gregory, Senior Editor
The moment I went from “Oh astrology is fun” to “Holy fuck this is real” was earlier this year when I realized 80% of the people I’ve dated/hooked up with/crushed on were Aquariuses. That can’t be a coincidence!
Part of me is like I should break patterns and stop dating Aquariuses. Another part of me is like Aquariuses are the best and I should stay on the path life has chosen for me. I’m not saying Aquariuses are the easiest sign to date, but why would anyone want easy? I’ve had the longest, most loving relationships of my life with Aquariuses as well as some fun flings and friendships.
Full disclosure: my mom is also an Aquarius but we’re not gonna talk about that okay?
Stef Schwartz, Vapid Fluff Editor
I have a significant Aquarius ex, and while we’re close friends now we were TERRIBLE at dating each other. We looked up our astrological compatibility once and cackled at the website’s description of our pairing as “an odd choice,” but in the end we really were. Her air sign needed a lot of space to breathe during conflicts, and my water sign desperately needed to process my thousands of emotions constantly. We fought like crazy. I like having Aquarii as friends, because they’re mega weirdos with valuable insight and perspective, but in retrospect whatever website told us we were “an odd choice” was 100% correct.
Ryan Yates, Writer
Aquarians are weirdo aliens but don’t tell most of them that, they don’t like to hear it even though it’s part of their charm. What’s not part of their charm: being epically terrible at keeping plans or being on time or communicating about how they are about to not do either of those things; being condescending; and being idealistic in theory but rarely in practice.
Mika Albornoz, Writer
Positive: it’s hard to describe it because language transcends it; just trust me, Aquariuses are dope signs. In my opinion the most sensitive sign in the universe; people just don’t know it or understand it, but also it’s hard for me to explain it because I have such intense Aquarius placements
Negative: lmao same as Sag, meaning they avoid and would rather run away, but with even more icing because they don’t enjoy conflict like Sag does. Also, stubborn.
Rachel Kincaid, Former Managing Editor
I don’t think I’ve ever dated an Aquarius sun, but have certainly put the miles in as far as people with a lot of Aquarius elsewhere. Y’all are so fascinating and also absolute terrors tbh! I can usually get a pretty good and thorough read on people, it’s hard to surprise me, but Aquariuses manage to do so endlessly because they truly are that weird and full of inexplicable, seemingly out-of-nowhere ideas and life choices. Why did they do that? We will never know! Because they will never tell you, choosing instead to spiral away into actual literal outer space rather than have a conversation or explain themselves. They are excellent at things that require unconventional abstract thinking; they could come up with a new religion or an unbelievable strategy for direct action in 10 minutes, while being completely categorically incapable of having a basic text conversation that says “hey it hurt my feelings when you started brunch without me, could you be more aware in the future,” preferring instead to avoid you for the next 10 years.
Also, Aquariuses are another fixed sign, like Leos (me), meaning we are both completely intractable and refuse to ever budge or change our minds about anything. Nice to have that in common but also, obviously, completely impossible to live with.
We’re just flung out of space
Also we love love love our misunderstood but wonderful Libra and Gemini beings in our lives 💜💜💜
😘
Vanessa: I do not understand air signs AT ALL, and I would say of all the air signs I do not understand, I understand Aquariuses the least.
Me, an Aquarius: Thank you
this is… the most aquarius thing. 🏆
same. We win at being inscrutable.
hahaha honestly tysm, also you’re welcome <3
Was impatiently waiting for this and it delivered. I love being a weirdo alien, you all are welcome lol.
I am here for visionary weirdos. My Venus is in Aquarius; it is very useful professionally, it gets weird in intimate relationship, overall I love it a lot, also glad about the other parts of my chart that balance it out.
as someone with FIVE AQUARIUS placements, how dare you. but also, mostly yes. Aquarii are weird and emotional and weird about our emotions. i hate when i hear that we’re cold and unfeeling but maybe i’m the outlier there since i’m also a “everyone should have access to good therapy” gay. we’re big on abstract thinking, which explains why i’m a huge stoner and obsessed with language as a concept but struggle to give concrete verbal feedback. in conclusion, i love this, how dare you.
“Why did they do that? We will never know! Because they will never tell you, choosing instead to spiral away into actual literal outer space rather than have a conversation or explain themselves. They are excellent at things that require unconventional abstract thinking; they could come up with a new religion or an unbelievable strategy for direct action in 10 minutes, while being completely categorically incapable of having a basic text conversation that says “hey it hurt my feelings when you started brunch without me, could you be more aware in the future,” preferring instead to avoid you for the next 10 years.”
Rachel, thank you. My long-term Aquarius-sun partner just dumped me without actually saying they were dumping me (they said “I’d like to stay connected when we’re able”), and gaslit me in the process(“I’m not withdrawing”). Awful.
As an Aquarium (a drunk Aquarian) I am Shocked and Apalled™ at your former partner’s behaviour.
«Not My Aquarius »
Thank you, @deli-twotone. I am shocked as well and it’s reassuring to know I am not alone in that shock.
I … might have had the same ex. She didn’t actually dump me, she took me out for dinner and told me all the reasons we shouldn’t be together for hours until I finally said, fine, here’s your stuff. At which point she was shocked and started writing me non-committal love letters, only to turn around one more time a month later and tell me that actually, the only connection we had was sex.
i feel seen.
I jumped right to the comments, didn’t read your hot takes because I’m aquarian to the coooore.
You’ll either hurt me or praise me which will hurt me even more.
Stop talking about me already and kiss me. Nuff said.
Uh, this is rude, but also accurate? I really really really REALLY hate conflict. It’s. So. HARD. Is there a sign that is good at dealing with conflict???
rude. I feel v called out.
Oh, Oh, Oh, it’s all about me!
Yep! And you’ve nailed it.
Personal attack!! Haha. But wow, that look from an external POV makes so much sense now. I tend to get existential and overwhelming on the most basic of communication forms in a relationship, and my partner who is Libra sometimes gets so overwhelmed by all my words and shuts down. Working on pulling back and really thinking through what I need to say before saying it
It’s a struggle to manifest the internal dialogue into real space. By the time we are at that point the decision is made so why waste the energy arguing over something that just is.
We are stubborn and assume everyone else is equally stubborn so conflict is potentially endless. If we take on a debate it is in the pursuit of knowledge, not to decide on whose version of reality is more correct. If we do manage to convince you our opinion is correct despite that fact that we know we are operating on less than perfect information, we tend to question your judgment and critical think skills.
Catch 22.
So situations where an argument is likely to break out, especially with regards to something emotional are generally avoided because we get vicious when we are cornered and can cause real long lasting damage or we win and lose at the same time because how in the hell did you let me convince you that it was Jennifer Saunders and not Joanna Lumley in the deleted hostel scene from Euro Trip!!!
How did we get so good at tearing you down? Because we have already spent the majority of our time in a relationship mapping your strengths and weaknesses. Not maliciously, we just really want to understand everything, but it is easy to use that knowledge for evil and with great power comes great responsibility.
What is seen as condescending is just trying to explain in a way that is clear enough to be reasonably assured of understanding. When someone speaks to us condescendingly it mostly goes over our head until such time as thst person says something that we know is incorrect, then it’s on, nerd battle to the death.
We mostly don’t notice when everyone is keeping us at arms length, or when we get invited to certain parties because we are walking repositories of arcane and forbidden knowledge. But when we do notice it hurts a bit, mostly we just want to be appreciated as individuals and not ostracised because of our overt strangeness.
As far as we are concerned everyone is weird, why bother hiding it?
Sincerely and stuff, an Aquarian.
P.S. writing stuff like this is pretty much an anathema to being an Aquarian, several times I thought “why does it matter?, “what is the point?”, “astrology is not real in a scientific sense, but yet I still find the practice of astrology facinating, but nothing I say has any relevance outside of my own perceptual bias, still it could be interesting to someone else, am I really authorized to speak on behalf of an incredibly diverse population of people whose only commonality is the happenstance of being born within a roughly 4 week window?”
So yeah, if you ever wondered why more Aquarii don’t speak out on our behalf (we get bashed quite a lot along side Scorpio for being supposed social deviants), that’s why.
P.P.S. despite our general disregard of astrology as being relevant I find it amusing that Aquarian themed merchandise is usually the first to sell out. So many times I’m like aaaaaa cute mug and find every other sign but Aquarius, lol