Picture this for a moment. You’re out with friends and you mention a conflict or disagreement with someone. Your friend says, “you should pray about it.”
You: Oh, I’m not a Christian.
Friend: Well, just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean it’s not true.
You: Well, it means nothing to me.
Friend: Whether you believe in God or not doesn’t matter. God is God. He’s going to guide you regardless.
You: Okay we can change the subject.
Friend: Why? I can share some scriptures with you.
You: I’m trying to be nice, but this is nonsense. It’s not real. I don’t want to participate.
Friend: I guess but that explains why you act that way. If you believed in God you would probably understand why you’re having conflict.
You: I don’t want to offend your little belief system, but I’m this close to never speaking to you again.
If you believe in astrology with your whole being, but that scenario up there offends you or seems weird, please know that is exactly how I feel when one of y’all asks my birthday in attempt to put me in a box you made for me and I refuse.
I went to happy hour with my friend Daniel the other day and I ran into another friend, James, who was having drinks with someone else (Alex). We decided to join them and at one point I mentioned a mutual friend that James and his friend Alex had both worked with. Our mutual friend from their job is nice, but not exactly my cup of tea, and Alex asked my birthday. I know what that is. He was going to tell me, based on the stars, why I didn’t like someone. That is all hogwash to me, so I just avoid the conversation.
Me: Oh I don’t do astrology.
Alex: Come on, what’s your birthday.
Me: No really, it’s not important.
Alex: Just tell me.
Me: I’m just going to lie anyway at this point so your assumption about my behavior won’t even be based on anything.
James: I know your birthday though.
Me: Oh right you do! (Secretly giving him a gold star for recognizing I do not want to be in this conversation, because he could have just told the guy, but he refrained.)
Daniel: Aren’t you a Scorpio? (Secretly deducting a star! Read the room!)
Alex: Ah well that explains it!
Of course it explains it. Whatever sign I said would have explained it. But now I just genuinely don’t want to talk to you ever again. I regularly use astrology as a barometer for how much energy I will invest into our relationship because the amount you proselytize is inversely proportional to how much I care about the interaction. If I meet someone in a bar and their first question is what’s your sign, I always decline. If they don’t push, we’re good! If they do push, I let them decide what my sign is, and then I just agree with it. One of my friends still thinks of me as a Sagittarius because that’s what he guessed, I told him that was correct, and he didn’t find out my birthday until two years later.
It may seem like I’m being an asshole or overreacting, but I grew up in a cult, and not in a “all churches are cults” kind of way. I grew up in a doomsday fringe sect of Seventh Day Adventism. There’s an episode about my cult in season two of Haunted on Netflix. I didn’t leave one cult to just participate in another one based on the stars and some vague descriptions of their character.
The part I really don’t understand about the Star Cult People is their complete inability to see that they are participating in the same dogmatic behaviors that sent a lot of them running away from churches while at the same time not understanding that their judgement is even worse than the religious zealots that drove them out. I cannot stand having judgements placed on me by people who are trying to use superficial characteristics to explain my behavior.
Oh you have long hair, so you must know how to do makeup. I don’t.
Oh you’re Black so you must know how to play Spades. I don’t.
Oh you work in finance so you must rich and boring. I’m not.
If I say I’m sad, I don’t want a pastor telling me the reason I’m sad is because I’m not living my life in service of Sky Daddy and that God’s judgement is manifesting itself in my discontent while the reason I’m sad is because the American Gestapo is arresting 5-year-olds.
If I say I don’t want to be around your sister, I don’t want you telling me I don’t like her because we’re both Scorpios and we can’t compete for the spotlight while the reason I don’t like her is because she’s a racist and her microaggressions will drive me to fuck up the whole party.
And you know what happens when you bring it up? Gaslighting. “Oh I don’t follow it that closely, it’s just for fun.” If it’s just for fun, and it’s just for you, then why do you need me to tell you which box to put me in so you can ascribe all of my actions to the preset of behaviors you’ve associated with that box. Why can’t my reasons for being observant be ascribed to your reasons behind why a Pisces is observant or ascribed to your reasons behind why a Virgo is observant?
Because you need control, and deciding the motivations behind the actions of others is asserting control in a time of social unrest. People turn to spirituality when they’re stressed, but as a whole, I’m not going to find a bunch of people turning to Jesus and Allah in my queer liberal circles of NYC. I’ll find people turning to astrology, which provides some level of subconscious comfort as a response to how little control we have over the things all around us. The reason why straight men are most averse to astrology isn’t just because “it’s a girl thing,” but because as a whole, they find less discomfort in times of turmoil as they remain safer than marginalized communities even throughout social changes.
But now I’m off topic.
I don’t really come on here to drag anybody’s beliefs. I have Muslim friends, Christian friends, Jewish friends, and Astrology friends. I don’t want any of them trying to convert me over drinks, so if I don’t wanna participate in your belief system, keep it pushing. If you are a Member of the Church of Astrology, you’d be aghast if you met a new friend whose Catholicism meant you had to take communion before you could continue the conversation, so don’t force me to go into Birthday Bullshit if I politely decline to participate.
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