A romance written in the stars
The astrological signs pointed to incompatibility, but the moons foretold a perfect fit for love
Ihave always been a romantic. I have a collection of Pablo Neruda poems at my bedside, I devour romance movies and songs of heartbreak, and I use astrology as a blueprint for my life. As weird as it sounds, I never dated anyone seriously before first checking to see if our signs were compatible. It might seem farfetched, but to me it seemed a waste of time to date someone for months only to realize that she was diametrically opposed astrologically.
One might say our meeting was random — a chance encounter at Seven Grand in downtown L.A. on a night when I went out only because I wanted to accompany a friend visiting from out of town. I had just broken up with a girl and was in no place to meet someone new, let alone fall in love. I had given up most of my romantic notions and swore to myself not to let the stars dictate whom I should and shouldn’t be with. I wasn’t looking.
And yet, isn’t that when love always seems to find a person? As he is turning a corner, blindsided?
There she was, in her white pants and flowy black top, a natural beauty who seemed down to earth, with an affinity for profanity. In an instant I felt a spark, something special that drew us to each other, something that couldn’t be explained. I found that she, like me, lived downtown, and we spent the following week texting and talking on the phone before going for izakaya in Little Tokyo. She came to our first date in big, dark-framed glasses and sweats.
“Why are you so dressed up?” she asked. I knew right then that she was a keeper.
Maybe it’s because she was everything that I was not. She was blunt, and she didn’t sugarcoat or read deeper meanings into things that weren’t there. She played it straight, challenging me and my way of thinking. I stumbled over my words trying to keep it cool. There was no way I could show her my romantic side.
Walking back from our date, we passed an empty square next to the Japanese American Museum and sat on the steps. I caught her gazing into the sky.
“Look at that,” she said. “I love stars. It’s rare that we get to see them with the light pollution.”
To my surprise I found out she was as much of a romantic as I was. She believed that her soul mate was out there in the world somewhere, waiting for her. She also believed in astrology as much as I did. She was an Aries and I was a Pisces, and we spent a whole night reading about the compatibility of the two signs on our phones. Our signs normally would be diametrically opposed; hers is a fire sign that is stubborn and hotblooded, mine, a water sign that is passive and goes with the flow. But it just so happened that she had a Pisces moon and I had an Aries moon — meaning that we shared each other’s qualities and understood each other. A perfect fit. I know that when two people like each other, they often find a reason to justify their affection. Maybe they view the world through the prism of astrology, psychology or what they believe to be commonplace logic. Some people believe in the randomness of events — things just happen as they happen. But I felt something more, that it was more than a coincidence that we met at a downtown whiskey bar.
A few months later, she took me to the Griffith Observatory, her favorite place in Los Angeles, and we gazed out at the skyline. We didn’t see the stars that night, but we did see the city where we both lived our entire lives. We realized we had always been there, seemingly for an eternity, waiting to discover each other. It was as if our meeting was written in the stars.
On any given day, our true selves are often hidden behind masks of every variety — some are worn as disguises, some as protection, some so we can fool ourselves.
What this experience confirmed for me is that astrology, an ancient practice perfected over centuries and perceived by some to be, at best, a hopeful guide for the hopeless, offers more meaning than it seems. Shouldn’t we be connected to the stars somehow?
It was there, at the observatory, that I told her I loved her.
She said, “Ditto.”
Anthony Hoang is an insurance underwriter based in Los Angeles. L.A. Affairs chronicles the current dating scene in and around Los Angeles. If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at home@latimes.com.