Maybe a sign of delusion
Dear Amy: My girlfriend of three years has become obsessed with astrology.
I support her observation of the discipline, but now that we are more serious as a couple, she is trying to bring me into the fold.
When Mercury is in retrograde, she complains and laments every purchase and every decision I face.
She has tried to bully me into rejecting job offers because Mercury is in retrograde.
She reads the chart of everyone who is in my life and goes so far as to suggest who I should have relationships with, based on their birth date and time.
She has dismissed key business partners because of their astrological chart, only to see them thrive without her.
A chart reader once told her that because of my birth date and time, that one day I will kill her in her sleep.
I laughed at the absurdity of the claim, but she genuinely suspects that there may be some validity to it.
How do I help her to see that her fanaticism is driving me away from her?
What should I do? Libra
Dear Libra: Unfortunately, your girlfriend’s behavior is becoming more extreme and resistant to rational thinking. You might want to consider leaving this particular system.
Dear Amy: I am a single 21year-old woman in my senior year of college. I spent most of my time in college in a serious relationship with my high-school sweetheart and am now enjoying my newfound freedom. However, my friends are having a hard time accepting this. They are desperately trying to find my “soul mate” by setting me up with men.
After a particularly bad fix-up experience that resulted in my getting fired as the maid of honor for my closest friend’s wedding and not speaking to her for over a year, I now refuse all attempts at being set up.
When I inevitably reject these men, they start hurling insults at me. One man even threatened to commit suicide. Most recently, my friend “Jennifer” gave my contact information to a man who claims to be 35, but he looks more like he’s 45. I was shocked that she would do that without my consent, let alone with a man so much older. I’ve been ignoring his messages.
How can I convince my friends to understand that I am perfectly capable of finding my own boyfriends and to leave me alone? Single Lady
Dear Single Lady: You quite obviously feel bullied by your friends. It might be time for you to graduate into some new friendships.
No one should give out your contact information without your approval, and you should not accept any contact from anyone you don’t know. Treat the calls and texts from these potential fix-ups the same way you treat spam: Ignore. Delete. Block. Any “friend” who supplies your contact information has deliberately violated your privacy. This is not what friends do.
You might have left the impression that you are open to this by communicating with any of these men. Don’t. Put the word out to all of your friends at the same time: “I’m reminding everyone that I don’t want to be fixed up with anyone. Please don’t ever share my contact information.”
After that, any friend who does this should be struck from your friend list.
Send questions to askamy@ amydickinson.com or by mail to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068.