Virgo and Aquarius

A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with the floor.

Since Virgo delights in bringing order out of chaos, and Aquarius delights in bringing chaos out of order, these two Sun Signs should represent to one another the ultimate challenge.

Aquarians bounce around making prophecies and predictions as cheerfully as the weatherman (and with a far greater degree of accuracy). They insist on the right to be individualists and refuse to take themselves or anyone else seriously, treating life with a fine and careless detachment. Naturally, all this fascinates the method-minded, order-oriented Virgos, who wouldn’t dare to prophesy or predict the future (they’re too busy analyzing the past and nit-picking the present), who take themselves and everything else quite seriously—and treat nothing with careless detachment.

Virgos can recite the Gettysburg Address without missing a comma. They keep their checkbooks nicely balanced—and they also understand all about complicated airline schedules and the need to save your ticket stubs at the movies in case you have to go back outside to see if the time has run out on the parking meter. Naturally, all this fascinates the absentminded Aquarians, who can never get it straight whether it was Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt who thought this nation of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the Earth (both presidents were Aquarians, so it’s easy to get them mixed up); whose checkbooks absolutely refuse to balance; and who are always handing airline stewardesses their movie stubs and handing startled theatre ushers their plane tickets—not to mention being unable to recall where they parked their bicycles or saucers, never mind the meter.

These two like to study one another, preferably at a distance. Neither wants to get too close until he or she has figured out some of the rules to the game the other one plays. They need a little push to get together initially, like an insistent introduction through a mutual friend or the nonoptional fate of being born into the same family circle. However, once they form a relationship, it’s seldom a dull one.

Aquarians, ruled by the blitzkrieg planet Uranus, perversely refuse to think, speak, or act like anyone else, yet they want everyone to like them, and they can’t seem to understand why they are enigmas to those not tuned in to their zigzag frequency. They are attracted to every concept or idea that blows in front of their noses, until they extract all the truth from it, tire of the game, and move on to the next seductive possibility. What intrigued them yesterday will be erased from the blackboard of the mind tomorrow, wiping it clean for the next new and exciting equation.

An area of mystification between them will be the Virgo’s awesome talent for details. Virgo almost never forgets a name, a face, a sum, a date, or an address. Aquarians can forget people, places, pens, pets, umbrellas, and uncles. (Both, however, are unlikely to misplace their billfolds.) The Aquarian penchant for forgetting can be traced to the reluctance of these men and women to clutter their minds with unnecessary data and details when there are so many multitudinous matters to investigate and solve. Gertrude Dial, an Aquarian friend of mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado, always manages to remember both her pocketbook and her burglar alarm (she owns an antique and Indian turquoise jewelry store), but she’s been known to be a little fuzzy on some occasions when she’s trying to skip down memory lane with a typically vague Uranus road map. I shall always be impressed by the image of the winter day we were chatting in her shop, and a snow-covered man burst through the door, grabbed Gertrude in a polar-bear hug, and cried out, Gertrude, you sweet potato. How have you been?

She bear-hugged him right back, answering, I’ve been just fine. It sure is good to see you. Then she turned and said to me, Linda, I want you to meet one of my oldest and very closest friends. This is … uh … this is … (and she stared at him, her eyes misting with a haze of Uranus confusion). I believe this is … uh … Jim. No, I mean Richard … I mean Tom … uh, that is, uh- … what is your name anyway?

It pays to note that this sort of Aquarian mental fuzziness is the stuff of which genius is made. Refusing to bother with the memorization of nonessential data leaves these men and women free to give birth to startlingly original ideas, uncannily accurate hunches, and a lightning grasp of the really important facts of life. So we shouldn’t sniff at or put down the absentmindedness Aquarians exhibit when their thoughts are wandering out there in the clouds. But Virgos will sniff.

They’ll sniff and ask, How in the world can anyone forget the name of a close friend? Such lack of mental discipline and breach of good manners horrifies the mentally meticulous, carefully courteous Virgo souls. They simply cannot comprehend such intellectual laziness and disorderliness. Shall we tell them that Aquarian Gertrude Dial can remember the exact cost of every one of her hundreds of pieces of turquoise jewelry, the year they were made, by which Indian, and precisely how many stones are set in each—with her eyes closed? Yes, let’s tell them. Sometimes Virgos need to be tipped off to such non sequitur Uranus behavior, lest they underestimate the unpredictable shrewdness of the Aquarius intuitive intellect and get caught in their own flytraps. Aquarians don’t have the time or patience to concern themselves unduly with etiquette-book-type good manners. They have something more important—good hearts.

Virgos are good-hearted and intelligent too, but more timid, less wonderfully impetuous in demonstrating it than Aquarians. Whereas Aquarius arrives at a gesture of charity or a brilliant intellectual conclusion instinctively, through some sort of invisible telepathic process—Virgo arrives at the same place through painstaking inquiry and analysis—not instantly, like the Water Bearers, but right on time. Right on what time? Did someone ask the time?

Virgo: It’s exactly nineteen minutes before six o’clock P.M.
Aquarius: The time? What time is it? Uh, well … it’s afternoon, isn’t it? No, it must be closer to evening. I just noticed the Sun is setting. By the way, why is it that science refers to the Sun setting and rising, when it’s the Earth that revolves around the Sun, and not the Sun around the Earth? I mean, why not call it Earthrise and Earthset instead of Sunrise and Sunset?

Indeed, why not? That will give Virgo something to chew on and analyze for the next fourteen minutes and three seconds at least! Just another carelessly dropped, brilliant observation from an ordinary, garden-variety Water Bearer, pouring out questions which are really answers, in typical Uranian fashion.

An Aquarian almost never apologizes for his or her shortcomings or eccentricities, whereas the typical Virgo graciously and appealingly says I’m sorry every time he or she commits the most minor offense against tradition or popular ideas of behavior. I once saw a Virgo say I’m sorry to his elbow after he carelessly bumped it. It’s an endearing trait, to be sure. Male or female Virginians will worry-wrinkle their brains and hearts when they think others disapprove of something they’ve said or done, but Aquarians of either sex hardly even hear the person who repeats gossip to them, especially when the rumors are about themselves. It’s in-one-ear-and-out-the-other to an Aquarian, who possesses the helpful wisdom of knowing it’s impossible to please everybody—so the Water Bearer does his or her own thing and doesn’t try to please anybody. They love to be liked, and are puzzled and hurt when friends criticize them, but the reaction doesn’t last long. Maybe for two or three moments. Then Aquarius happily trots off, whistling a tune backward … and tosses some more wishes into penny wells. (No, I didn’t mean pennies into wishing wells. I meant wishes into penny wells. You have to learn the knack of upside-down communication if you’re ever going to be able to play tic-tac-toe with these people.)

Aquarians are the most curiosity-motivated Earthlings you’ll ever meet. Virgos are too, but the latter are often torn between caution and curiosity. They fret and analyze and want to think things over carefully before they act, which deprives them of spontaneity, a quality they can learn from Aquarius, while Aquarius is learning the much-needed lesson of discrimination from Virgo. One thing they usually agree on (relatively) is how to spend money. Carefully. However, Virgo may be somewhat more careful than Aquarius, because Virgo believes that if one is to practice generosity, one must first practice thrift. Rams and Lions and Fish and Archers, who go around flinging cash to friends and strangers alike, upset the Virgins, who will caution the extravagant ones against such careless giving by warning that charity begins at home. If that doesn’t work, they’ll try again with the warning that, As you grow more wasteful, you must grow less generous.

I’m a Ram, so I don’t agree with that philosophy for an instant, but I only report astrological characteristics, I don’t endorse them. Anyway, neither Virgo nor Aquarius is likely to squander money, or spend it with a great deal of looseness on himself or herself. However, influenced by a powerful humanitarian urge, Aquarians do worry more than a little about the future of mankind and womankind, about their brothers and sisters who may go hungry and starve, as the Earth faces possible famine. Virgos will worry right along with them. Worrying is Virgo’s speciality, they pride themselves in it, and have refined it to an art. Their sympathies, you see, are similar, but their manner of expressing them is somewhat different. Both are sincerely concerned, but Virgo is decidedly more specific about it.

Aquarius: Just think how much less food the children of other countries are fed, compared to our American youngsters. It’s sad, and it’s shocking.
Virgo: Yes, it is. I wonder if people realize that exactly thirty Biafran children, for example, must survive on the same amount of food eaten by only one healthy American child. It’s really appalling.
Aquarius: Do you know that all the fertilizer we use each year for ornamental purposes in this country alone—such as on golf courses, lawns, and flower gardens, all of which could easily do without it for a short while—would mean the difference between life and death to some nations?
Virgo: That’s entirely correct. We know it, but if only there could be a way to make other people in the United States know that by doing without their fertilizer for ornamental purposes for just twelve months there would be enough fertilizer to more than double the harvest grains of India, where so many millions of people are literally starving to death.
Aquarius: I was thinking, it’s so costly to convert grain to meat, and if Americans would … . .
Virgo: Exactly! It takes twenty pounds of grain to create just one pound of beef. Excuse me, please, for interrupting.
Aquarius: Sure, that’s okay. Like I was saying, if Americans would eat less meat, this would … . .
Virgo: If Americans ate only 10 percent less meat for only fifty-two weeks, or one year, it would free more than twelve million tons of grain for people all over the planet whose bellies are bloated from hunger. How can people realize that, and still enjoy their hamburgers and steak? Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to interrupt again. I’m sorry.
Aquarius: Don’t mention it. Listen, I was wondering … what would happen if we didn’t eat any meat at all?
Virgo: I’m glad you asked. What would happen is that not only would the world be a happier place to live in, but we’d all be healthier and live longer. Eating the flesh of our brutally murdered, slaughtered animal brothers is what causes nearly all disease. We’ll never heal the pain of starvation on this Earth, or heal our own bodies, if we don’t stop eating meat. Oh! do you eat meat? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.
Aquarius: Well, I did eat it, but now I … . say, are you a vegetarian?
Virgo: Yes, I am. Would you like a glass of carrot and celery juice? If you’ve never tasted it, it’s really delicious.

Not all Virgins eschew meat, of course (although many do), but before long, this particular, courteous, and informed Virgo will convert the curious Aquarian to a meatless diet, through the wise and inborn sense of human health all Virgos possess. Soon, the Water Bearer will be spreading abroad the exciting new discovery, with typical humanitarian enthusiasm—that you can stay well, look young, extend your life span, and simultaneously help those who are starving—simply by treating your body to fresh fruits and veggies, instead of aging and slowly killing it with hamburgers, hot dogs, roast beef, and steak. Then the Water Bearer will investigate further (like a good Aquarian detective) and joyfully pour out the newly discovered knowledge to Virgo that one can become more spiritually enlightened and psychic, as well as prevent and cure one’s illnesses, by periodically observing a three-day grape-juice fast, such as every month or two, for which wisdom Virgo will be cheerfully grateful.

Yes, together these two may rescue old Mother Earth and her misguided Earthlings after all. Virgo cleverness and clear thinking, combined with Aquarian inventiveness and genius, could be just the magical alchemy we need—plus the innate kindness and concern for others which is characteristic of both Sun Signs. Kindness heals all ills.

Virgo Woman and Aquarius Man

… once she even had to tell him her name. I’m Wendy, she said agitatedly.

He was very sorry. I say, Wendy, he whispered to her, always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying ‘I’m Wendy,’ and then I’ll remember.

Of course this was rather unsatisfactory … …

The Aquarian male’s eccentricity often stops just short of the altar. In his choice of a lifetime mate, he tends to be slightly old-fashioned. Maybe that’s because there’s room for only one cuckoo in a clock.

Since a Virgo female won’t compete in the cuckoo clock olympics, you can see that a mating between these two can work out nicely, since sex, to the virgin, is also only one of several interests. She can probably keep his socks washed and matched, his desk organized, remind him of his name and phone number, be a conscientious mother, an intelligent career woman, and a bright conversationalist with his friends—all at the same time. Their relationship contains all the ingredients of success, but they’ll have to work at it. Correction: she’ll have to work at it.

For one thing, she’s too discriminating to flip over all the odd, assorted friends he may bring home at various hours. (I know one Virgo wife whose Aquarian husband expected her to play hostess to a snake wrestler from Pakistan for two weeks while he practiced with his reptile in the basement in preparation for the worldwide Python Tournament Match—and that’s a true story.) For another thing, she’s not a torrid sex symbol. But let’s face it, he might not know what to do with Claudia Schiffer if he had her.

It’s easy for a Water Bearer to make mistakes handling a Virgin. She has such a large capacity for patient, sympathetic understanding when he’s physically ill or emotionally drained, it’s a temptation for him to take advantage of her tender consideration. However, just because she often seems willing to out-geisha a geisha girl, doesn’t mean her whole purpose in life is to wait breathlessly for his unpredictable arrival each evening—or to faint quietly in his arms when he deigns to notice her by tossing out something like, You’re okay, buddy! Her ideas of a full love relationship are not quite that skinny.

The reason she fell in love with him was because he saw rainbows no one else knew were out there, and she thought it would be a mad and marvelous thing to chase them with him (since Virgos are never as stuffy as the old astrological textbooks would have you believe. The reason he made the great sacrifice of allowing her to wash his socks is because she didn’t laugh at his rainbows … because she had enough sense to see that they were painted in practical colors. But sensible or not, rainbows are rainbows—and they’re pretty scarce around washing machines, dust pans, sweepers, or diaper pails. He may neglect her a bit while he’s out looking for a purple cow, inventing a bed that walks over to you when you’re tired instead of making you walk over to it—or fiddling around with a dozen or so other fascinating projects which engage his hopscotch mind from time to time. If he refuses to allow her to join him in his eternal search for tomorrow, the glue that first stuck these two together may start peeling around the edges.

To be honest (as Virgos insist on being, however painful), any stalemates they face could be more than half her fault. A Virgin has a way of allowing herself to let duty take over, then silently blaming her man for the dusty corners she’s swept herself into through her own choice.

She often trudges wearily far beyond the path of duty, then cries because she’s lost in the woods of waiting on his whims. It’s her ingrained sense of loyalty to the man she’s promised to love, honor, and serve, with or without benefit of clergy. And you know how a Virgo is about promises—a regular nut when it comes to integrity. This woman can also be critical on occasion. In fact, she can be critical on lots of occasions. But she does it so sweetly—and the Aquarian male, when he has a mind to, can split a pretty thin hair himself.

The whole thing is that they’re both dreamers at heart, never mind how acute their mental capacities may be or how fixed their habits may become. Theirs are not the wispy images of Pisces or the wild goals of Aries. They have more concrete foundations. But still … they’ll have to hang on to those dreams if they want to hang on to each other.

The oversolicitous Virgin should encourage her Water Bearer to climb his beanstalks alone once in a while. If she persists in enveloping him in her earthy, exaggerated sense of responsibility, he may turn into a sadistic, bullying dictator (especially if he has a Scorpio, Leo, or Aries Moon Sign or Ascendent), or he’ll take an extra hour or two in town every chance he gets. Remember that Aquarius is an Air Sign, and all people born in this element need lots of the stuff to breathe—and to wander around in.

There’s a kind of secret surprise to their sexual compatibility. A Virgo woman I know who had been widowed a number of years, became lonely. Normally, a Virgo woman would leave well enough alone, since, as you know by now, Virgos of both sexes are basically loners. But this one had a number of Leo planet positions in her birth chart, and therefore she felt the need of romance in her life. So she joined one of those dating services, and for a couple of years she received numerous requests from eligible men, along with their photograph, an analysis of their characters, professions, hobbies, and so forth. She carefully checked them out—one by one—then turned them all down flat. They weren’t quite what she was looking for, you see. Three hundred and twenty-one men fell short of her expectations and didn’t measure up to her image of what she wanted. Think of it. This is why the Aquarian male, with his infinite variety, has a good chance of hitting the right formula with his discriminating and difficult-to-please woman—and that’s the secret surprise of their sexual compatibility!

The sexual side of their love, as with all 6-8 Sun Sign Patterns, can be, therefore, unexpectedly rewarding, but for more unique reasons. His Uranus shock treatment and imaginative surprise maneuvers may spark fires in her she didn’t know existed before he came along to try to drive her as wonderfully crazy as he is himself. He won’t succeed, of course. She’s Earth, he’s Air. But trying will be stacks of fun for his curious psyche. What he well might succeed in doing is bringing her sexual fulfillment, however. One of his many changeable sexual attitudes may be just right—perfect for her requirements. There’s an aura of mystery about a Virgin that intrigues the detective in Aquarius. She can keep him guessing for years about her secret self, and guessing is his favorite pastime. Then too, his airy detachment regarding physical intimacy (although it could conceivably be mixed with some far-out experiments at times) will blend rather nicely with her own cool approach to sexual matters, and probably won’t disturb her sense of propriety. (Except for those rare, but possible, far-out things, which could be as innocent as his preferring to make love outside in the backyard, in a tent, where he can smell the grass and count the stars.) Passion won’t be lacking in their relationship, because she represents the eighth house of the mysteries of sex to him, therefore she may arouse more desire in him than other women have done in the past—which will flatter her and make her feel needed. You know how happy being needed makes a Virgo, so it could all work out in an unexpectedly satisfactory way for them both.

Aquarians like to tease, but it would be a mistake for him to tease her to the point of tears too often. Virgins are capable of making a decision to cut out and find another man after long deliberation—and of then acting with icy-cold, almost surgical precision. He might also note that her beautiful, clear eyes need a change of scene now and then, as do his—and her lucid mind needs more stimulation than What’s for dinner tonight, buddy? Granted, she has her own little drawbacks, like picking fuzz off the blankets on a romantic summer night when fuzz-plucking is the very last thing on his mind—or telling him it’s freaky to wear brown socks with black shoes (which won’t rattle him in the slightest, since he considers freakiness a virtue, except when someone else’s interferes with his own fixed personal habits). She may lean a little heavy on the martyr syndrome and fuss too much over punctuality—or worry and fret if he refuses to take a bath in Vick’s salve when he sneezes. But these are all symptoms of a Virgo woman who’s being taken too much for granted. Serving dinner late in a sloppy kitchen and neglecting to brush her hair one hundred strokes each night (or their equivalents) are her warning signals of boredom.

When she first met him, he used to watch TV standing on his head and munching Goobers chocolate-covered peanuts. Now he walks around on two feet like any ordinary, dull Earthling. As soon as that happens, it’s time for the Aquarian man to grab his Virgin and charter a plane for Egypt to ponder the puzzles and master the mysteries of the Great Pyramid of Giza—standing on his head, of course, in the king’s chamber or the tomb room.

Then they can stroll along the Nile in the moonlight while she whispers softly, Darling, I have a fantastic idea. Why don’t you build an alarm clock into the head of our bed?—and he can murmur back, Let’s just keep dreaming like this. Who wants to wake up?—and she can state, Virgo-like, But we’re already awake. Then he can feign surprise, Uranus-like, and exclaim, No kidding? I thought we were here in our astral bodies.

Virgo Man and Aquarius Woman

He tried to argue with Tink. You know you can’t be my fairy, Tink, because I am a gentleman and you are a lady. To this Tink replied in these words, You silly ass, and disappeared into the bathroom.

One thing is fairly certain (though few other things are with these two). Virgo and Aquarius will not keep a lifetime contract unless there’s true love between them, which can be determined from their Moon Signs and other mutual planetary exchanges in their horoscopes. The rule seldom applies so frequently to all 6-8 Sun Sign Patterns as to this one, due to the peculiarities of their natures. Anything less than real and deep love (such as friendship with sex thrown in, commonly referred to as friends with benefits) will never last. No way. You might say that’s true in general of all couples, born under any stars, but you would be wrong.

Many Sun Sign combinations will remain together through the years, so long as they share a mutual respect and a comforting empathy, lacking the energy, desire, or burning need to pursue a deeper relationship with someone else and settling for what is acceptably nonabrasive, even if not the grand passion dreamed of in youth. Not so Virgo and Aquarius.

Virgos will cut emotional ties (which make them uncomfortable at best) if they begin to ravel into nothingness. Only a special and meaningful romance can cause Virgo to become involved in the first place. If he discovers he’s been wrong, he’ll retreat into stubborn silence, refusing to further share his heart—and, not always, but more often than not, remain so throughout his life. Since Virgo is basically a loner anyway, why should he go against his nature again? He considers himself lucky to have escaped the first marital goof. It’s safer to live alone, punctuating his bachelorhood with occasional, lighthearted affairs—than to risk another failure of a shared life, which would make him vaguely uneasy, even if it worked out. Virgo singer-entertainer Maurice Chevalier was a perfect example of this astrological truth. He continued to be, until the very end of his life, a gentle, subtle sex symbol to women, and he engaged in several flirtations and brief liaisons over the years—but he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice and allow himself to be seduced into another permanent tie, after the first one turned sour in his youth.

When a Virgo man is disillusioned by love, the disenchantment only proves to his analytic mind and heart that he was right in his instinctive, original suspicion that there is no such thing on this planet as even a near-perfect relationship, so why court certain and repeated disappointment? He’s wrong, of course, but did you ever try to prove a Virgo wrong?

As for Aquarius, the typical Water Bearer (male or female), once a mistake has been recognized, will have no compunction about continuing the love search, discarding old relationships for new until a reasonable facsimile of the first idealized romance of youth is found (which could have been a grade school idyll or a high school puppy love, so stubbornly clung to that it may be the underlying cause why the first real, adult love affair or marriage didn’t work. Who wants to share a mate with a ghost?).

Some—not all—but some Aquarian women are capable of tossing out some pretty salty verbal sallies when they’re trying to shock a Virgo male into noticing them or trying to jostle him out of his constant and annoying emotional Declaration of Independence with some unexpected and quite weird behavior. I can’t say for certain that he’ll blush and be romantically rattled by mild profanity from the sex traditionally imaged as sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice—but in the olden days before the sexual revolution, Virgo men tended to look askance at ribald language or unconventional behavior from females. Let us not forget that the symbol of Virgo is still the Virgin, representing an innate essence of his inner nature which even the changing times can’t completely cancel.

Now, don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m accusing the Aquarian female of being vulgar. I am not. It’s just that she’s usually more outspoken and frank than her other Sun Sign sisters (except Sagittarius). Not only more outspoken and frank, but also more independent, unconventional, unpredictable, unusual—and just plain more cuckoo and kooky. As an example, think of cigar-smoking Aquarian, Tallulah Bankhead, who liked to be interviewed by reporters, stark nude in her birthday suit, to test their shock threshold—never mind that her daddy was Congressional Speaker of the House. Or how about the enterprising Aquarian Oprah Winfrey whose career defies boundaries. Her multiple roles include actress, day time talk show host, television and film producer, network owner and international philanthropist. Her pioneering spirit and humanitarian vision epitomizes the Aquarius I play by my own rules approach to life.

Aquarian women care nothing for public opinion or gossip, only for their own inner measurement of honesty and decency. To live their lives by the dictates of society would be, to all Water Bearers, the height of hypocrisy. The degree of the strain of Uranian unconventionality varies, but you won’t have to look far to find it running through the personal lives of even the most poised, quiet, and conventional-appearing Aquarian females. The neighbors are always shocked, along with the relatives, when a quiet, apparently docile Aquarian wife suddenly and unexpectedly leaves her husband to become a dancer, a painter, an actress—or to open a health spa in Siam.

There’s this funny thing about a Virgo man. Having been born as what astrology terms one of the human Sun Signs (symbolized by the human Virgin), he has no animal instinct to guide him when he falls in love, so at first, belonging as he does to the Earth Element, he draws back into the cool woods of his deeper self, until he’s had time to analyze these new feelings. It might help the woman who loves him to know that Virgos tend to fear and mistrust what they most desire.

There’s this funny thing about an Aquarian woman. Having been born as what astrology terms one of the human Sun Signs (symbolized by the human Water Bearer), she has no animal instinct to guide her when she falls in love, so at first, belonging as she does to the Air Element, she draws back into the clouds of her deeper self, until she’s had time to analyze these new feelings. It might help the man who loves her to know that Aquarians tend to fear and mistrust what they most desire. You can see that this pair is well matched in some respects, at least.

Neither is noted for being intensely matrimony-minded. There are more singles of both sexes among these two Sun Signs than among those born under the influence of the other ten stars. However, once Aquarians have carefully selected the right mate and decided to marry, they usually rush right in, headlong and heart first, which is seldom the Virgo marital pattern—so their romantic timing may be slightly off, and they’ll have to synchronize their idiosyncrasies to make it to the altar. Otherwise, they’ll just have to share the same sleeping bag, hang up one of those posters that says TARZAN AND JANE ARE LIVING IN SIN, and laugh it off as a fun thing. That is, they’ll try to laugh it off, but neither Virgo nor Aquarius is cut out for hilarity when it comes to the serious matter of love—or even the more serious matter (to them) of sharing their sleeping bags, hair brushes, bank accounts, vitamins, wheat germ, and sweet solitude.

It has been wisely and correctly stated that a woman’s tenderness is scarce in men, but when a man is tender, he’s more tender than a woman ever could be. In either an illicit or a legally and socially sanctioned union, this is doubly true of the Virgo male. (I didn’t say spiritually sanctioned, because all real love is spiritually sanctioned, whether wedlocked or unwed-locked.) This man’s tenderness can be almost a tangible thing, touching upon every area of his relationship with the woman he loves temporarily or permanently, including sexual expression. Lots of women would find this a quality to treasure, a precious and comforting trait in a lover or husband. But the Aquarian woman will accept tenderness from a mate in their physical consummation of love with pleasure and gratitude only for a certain length of time. Then she needs a change. She prefers every experience to be fleeting, not too lingering, so she can savor its joy, then pass on to the next experience.

Some experiences, of course, are worth repeating a number of times, and tenderness is undoubtedly among them, but she may expect to share with him this sort of lovemaking only periodically, replaced from time to time with other sexual experiments—from a primal passion or the abandonment of sensual surrender—all the way to the delicate and controlled oriental Tantra method of sexual-spiritual union. (I’m not referring to the degrading aspect of Tantra taught by some lustful gurus, who advocate switching mates if one’s partner lacks the proper aesthetic qualities for such sensitive coupling, but the pure and true form of Tantra, before it was distorted by these misled and promiscuous disciples.) To keep his Aquarian lady interested and seducible (since the truth of the matter is that she’d just as soon take a hike in the woods and sing along with a chipmunk as indulge in sex merely for the sake of sex anyway), he’ll have to remember her basic need for change in all activities. The problem is that the typical Virgo male finds wild caveman abandonment—or any kind of abandonment requiring surrender of the total self—difficult to master.

The Aquarian woman shouldn’t expect her Virgo man to alternate lovemaking techniques every other night. Every other month or so constitutes about the limit of his ability to cope, lest his gentleness become crankiness. She should also never forget that a virginal-type, feminine purity and modesty, in or out of bed, is more likely to turn him on (allowing him to play the alternating roles of jungle man and Tantra guru) than brash expletives, like Tink’s You silly ass! and similar endearments. Swearing and other freaky habits—like turning cartwheels while she’s watching the weather report on radio (that’s what I said) are definitely not designed to help him retain his tenderness charisma, which is at the same time, both his most endearing and his most enduring romantic charm—as well as the one she’ll eventually find more satisfying and fulfilling herself after they’ve experienced all the others (including possibly a few tentative and lonely experiments with celibacy).

Because all Aquarians are light years ahead of the world, and whole paragraphs ahead of normal discussions and average conversations, she may throw him off balance when he questions her about a small speck he noticed on a cup and saucer she just washed, and she skips merrily ahead with an instant return query about spacecraft. (The word saucer. That’s what tripped her out, you see.) Although it seems Aquarians are seeking information when they query, what they’re actually doing is trying to discover what you know. That’s why she always answers his questions with another question. She’s an expert at the fine art of sneaky Socratic dialogue (Socrates was definitely an Aquarian), and she may use this disconcerting talent when they’ve had a quarrel, and have agreed to separate for a time … believing, as she uses it, that her estranged Virgo can’t see through her game to her real intent. (She hasn’t studied her Sun Signs. Virgo can see through anything.)

For example, while they’re apart, each thinking it over and trying to decide between a clean, final break and a possible reconciliation attempt—she may write him a tentative letter, closing with one of her clever Socratic questions:

I hope that, whatever happens, we can still be friends. We will always be friends, won’t we, darling?

Surely a Virgo man is alert enough to recognize that sly Aquarian query for what it really is—a Uranus test of romantic worthiness. If he truly wants her back, he should sock her with her own Socratic subtlety (firmly) when he answers her letter, writing:

No, we cannot still be friends. Definitely not. It has to be love between us, or nothing. You already know that. You were just trying to find out if I knew it too—weren’t you, darling?

Do you grasp the strategy now? Just answer her question with another question, the way she does. It will drive her crackers, and teach her a lesson. If she truly wants him back too, she’ll call on the phone and tell him he’s not such a silly ass after all, then dash over to him with a bottle of vitamin C for his sniffles, without stopping to play with any chipmunks along the way. She is being clocked—and this is no time to be late again.

Virgo Pisces
Earth—Mutable—Negative Water—Mutable—Negative
Ruled by Mercury Ruled by Neptune
Symbol: The Virgin Symbol: The Fish
Night Forces—Feminine Night Forces—Feminine