Am I the Only One Who Does This? April 14, 2008

Am I the Only One Who Does This?

By Guest Contributor
April 14, 2008

I obviously don’t take horoscopes seriously.

But if I ever read The Onion‘s version of them, I instinctively read my own Pisces’ blurb first.

Am I the only person who does this?


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

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  • *Raises hand sheepishly* I read both of mine, since my birthday falls on a day that seems to be classified differently depending upon who’s writing the horoscopes. I tend to read the rest of them, too, because they’re all funny.

  • Colin

    I’m Aries, so I have an excuse — Aries is usually listed first 🙂

  • No, I do too, but then I read the rest. It’s just fun. I don’t think it’s irrational.

  • Billy S

    I do that all the time…and the horoscopes I read are literally jokes. For instance, in the newspaper I read, today the horoscope for Gemini is “There’s a direct correlation of freckles on this campus and the amount of exposed flesh. Yay nudity!”

    In fairness, though, the horoscopes for my month are usually patently unfunny, so I can sort of justify it be saying that I am frantically searching for the good one that is inevitably going to come…

  • Mriana

    I’m Gemini, but I don’t pay much attention to horoscopes. I’m fickle about them though. Once in a while I do read them, but for the most part the rational part of me ignores them. The irrational part gets an occasional kick out them when my rational twin gives in to her. 😆

  • Milena

    I do that too. I’m a Leo, so I can’t justify it like Colin up there. I’m smack in the middle of the damn thing. Well, we seek out that which concerns us, I suppose, even if just marginally. Funny thing is, I usually wear a silver pendant with all the signs ascribed in a circle, because it’s a memento from my older sister, so I’ve gotten some funny questions.

  • Ron in Houston

    Hi Hemant

    Totally off topic – but I’d love you to give some time to the whole FLDS mess down in Texas.

    I’d love for you to also comment in general on the FLDS and on this article about government contract to FLDS from the federal government.

    Thanks

  • Nope, me too!

  • Haha, nice find. These are much more entertaining than the typical so-vague-they-can-apply-to-anyone horoscopes.

  • Derek

    I love that my current Onion horoscope is this:

    Taurus April 20 – May 20

    The stars indicate this is a good week to get your life in order, making you glad you don’t believe in all that astrology crap.

  • Josha

    Does anybody else get asked ‘What’s your sign’? Why do people want to know this? Does it really matter what my astrological sign is?

    Then they say something like, “Ooo, I’ve got to stay away from you. We all know how Scorpios have short tempers.” Yeah, you better step off. I’m about to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  • Ubi Dubium

    “What’s your sign?” My response would usually be “No Right Turn”. Has anybody out there got a better comeback for this idiotic question?

  • bc

    I give my sign based on the constellation the sun was acctually in when I was born, rather than on the astrological dates that were set at the dawning of the age of Pisces. I just with I was an Ophiushusian (roughly Nov 28 – Dec 18 this year).

  • Richard Wade

    I generally ignore the mainstream horoscopes but if I do look at them of course I’ll look at my own sign, since I enjoy seeing how stupidly way off or meaninglessly vague they are. Only knowing about my own situation, I couldn’t make that determination about somebody else’s horoscope.

    When it’s a parody such as on The Onion then I’ll read them all because they’re hilarious.

    One thing I like to do is to bait astrology fans. When somebody earnestly asks me what is my sign, I always answer with a random choice of any of the eleven signs that I am not. After they say, “Oh I knew you were that!” and tell me in detail why they knew that because of my personality or whatever, I reveal that I lied. 😉

    As a little astronomical note, in the centuries since the “sun signs” were organized into specific calendar dates, because of a motion called precession the sun has gradually creeped out of those constellations into the preceding constellations. So while the newspaper horoscopes say that if your birthday falls between February 19 and March 20 you are a Pisces, the sun is actually in the preceding constellation of Aquarius. All the guideline dates are a full constellation off. So if you’re supposed to be a certain “sun sign” because the sun was actually in that sign when you were born, then everybody has the wrong sign. A Pisces is really an Aquarius, an Aquarius is really a Capricorn and so on. It gets even more absurd when you consider that the constellations do not occupy equal spaces along the sun’s path, the ecliptic. Some of them are huge and some are small. There’s even a thirteenth constellation that the sun passes across that everyone ignores, Ophiuchus, the Zodiacal house that “don’t get no respect.” It’s a guy handling two snakes so maybe he was too icky to include. The sun is actually in Ophiuchus between November 30 and December 17. So if your birthday falls between those dates you are really an Ophiuchan.

    Try that one on the next “what’s your sign” nincompoop.

  • ChrisMR

    The reason you do this is that you a concerned with the way others are evaluating you. Nobody thinks or claims the other predictions apply to you, so you pay attention to the one that supposedly does.

  • I instinctively read my own Pisces’ blurb first.

    Am I the only person who does this?

    Nope, Hemant, I always read your horoscope first.
    🙂

  • Ceryle

    I admit, i do it too. The good thing is, I have never even looked up what ‘star sign’ my 18 month old son is – I don’t know, and don’t care 🙂

  • I used to be guilty of this. I even learned to recognize “my” constellation in the sky. (It’s the teapot.)

    Then, in a fit of empirical “looking behind the curtains” of pseudoscience (I’m sure you all get that sometimes), I discovered an interesting fact.

    I am not a Sagittarius at all! Astronomically speaking, the star sign that the sun was “in” on the day of my birth is Ophiuchus.

    At present, the Sun is in Ophiuchus from November 30 to December 17.

    So not only do I have an interesting curveball answer when people ask me my sign, but it’s actually based on their own beliefs, which (like many superstitions) are not very carefully examined by the believers.

    Also, I get a little wry delight from the fact that my sign is the snake – that noble creature that persuaded the mythical first humans to eat from the tree of knowledge.

    Ceryle, that’s an interesting point. I haven’t learned my six-month-old daughter’s sign either. Yay for us!

  • ash

    my response to ‘what’s your sign’ is generally ‘i’m a fire dragon’. the chinese horoscope system is just as big a bunch of crock, but saying i’m tagged with a sign that only comes up every 48 years is far more interesting than admitting i’ve been tagged with the lameness that is virgo (and given the description of ‘the virgin’, far more accurate to an extent!).

    it also gave me an excuse for a kick-ass tattoo 😉

  • Slut

    I do, too…but then I also read the other horoscopes and laugh inwardly at how they all apply just as much.

  • I always read the Onion’s horoscopes…Taurus first, and them sometimes the rest – they’re too funny to pass up!
    When I had subscriptions to Seventeen and CosmoGirl, I always read my horoscope in those, too. I know they’re not real, but it was kind of fun to try and draw connections to my life.

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