• elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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    3 days ago

    I have a female friend who is an Astronomer. I always call her Astrologer, especially at parties and such.

  • Leviathan@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I generally try not to yuck anyone’s yum, I won’t make fun but I will just straight up say I don’t believe in anything spiritual or magical.

    • Lavender Breton @lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      What’s sadder is that yoga, chakras, and crystals are traditionally from religions within the Indian subcontinent. Westerners are simply taking aspects of South Asian cultures, indigenous cultures, African cultures, and then bastardising them into marketable “neo-pagan witchcraft.”

      • waterwasamistake@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Not the people, industries do that.

        People are very good at adopting whatever and thats mostly fine. Nobody is forced to partake in the corporate stuff. I also think its a bit unfair to westerners, we would like some culture too and we would not like to be restrained to christianity or the celtic stuff (that i personally like) but is very popular with nazis as well. In general living in the middle of europe everything native to my culture always feels a bit right wingey which many obviously dislike.

        Being part of a foreign religion doesn’t make it non bullshitty though. I will not just shit on any religion that i didn’t grow up with but you can’t argue that there aren’t people everywhere commercializing and using religion in their own interest.

      • Surp@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I’ve been at some concerts where I’ve seen people holding up crystals saying that they are absorbing energy. Seems like harmless fun to me. They aren’t out there killing people over it like religious people sometimes do.

  • hushable@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    A friend set me up on a date with a coworker of him. then she spent about 20 minutes drawing my astral chart. She had notes, books and even an iPad app.

    Eventually she concluded we were not compatible, while I concluded the same thing about 20 seconds in.

    • Cypress@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      even if i were male and straight, I don’t think i could ever respect astrology…

      but moreover, it’s creepy as fuck for someone to pretend a change in their beliefs just for sex. that’s kinda literally false pretense for sex. i know I’d never convince a jury of it, but as far as I’m concerned in my personal life, imagining doing such a thing fills me with revulsion and it crosses the line into sexual assault territory.

      • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        you realize it’s incredibly common for folks to do this? of any gender?

        i broke up with most of my exes because they false presented themselves to me. they saw absolutely nothing wrong with it, and to them I was the one who was awful and terrible for not ‘loving and accepting them for who they really are’. i had one ex who specific said ‘you’d have never dated me if i had told you the truth’.

        was I sexually assaulted by those women? who deliberately lied to me to have sex and engage in a relationship with me?

        I don’t think very many people would consider what they did as sexual assault.

        • Cypress@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          yes, i do in fact realize that it’s incredibly common for folks to be shitty human beings. i have elected to not be like them. because they are shitty. “everyone’s doing it” does not make it right.

          furthermore, literally all the rest of my post after the first sentence, set aside purposefully with two line breaks, intentionally did not specify or even mention gender. so I’m not sure why you brought it up as it were relevant.

          above and beyond standard social contract expectations,
          i shall additionally, PERSONALLY decline to perform acts that feel wrong to me,
          irrespective of others’ opinions.

          • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Well, IME people who talk like you, who boast about how truthful and honest they are, are the same ones who lied.

            Weird how that works out, isn’t it?

            Almost as if folks who boast about how honest and great they are, typically aren’t either of those things. And their need to boast is projection/overcompensation for their true behaviors.

            • Cypress@lemmy.zip
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              19 hours ago

              Come to think of it, it is weird that the way you think things are just so happen to work out in your favor. It’s almost as if you never had anything relevant to say in the first place.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The difference is most of them don’t believe in any of it. It’s just entertaining to them. Find ten people who say like astrology and ask them to make base a life deciding event on it all 10 of them will make the decision on factors outside of astrology.

        An easy way to tell, if they ask what month you were born in, they don’t believe in astrology… As the months don’t line up with the stars.

        • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          And then you have people like my own mom who judges, and forms whole opinions about, people based on their astrology signs.

          Even if some sort of behaviour completely contradicts their supposed astral sign, she’ll make it fit.

    • decolo@piefed.social
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      3 days ago

      I like to think of astrology as a fine grained personality shorthand like Meyers Briggs.

      the magical star-assigned fixed personality is dumb. what’s useful is being able to tell Becky to stop being such a Capricorn and come out and party, even if she is a cancer or whatever. it’s just a memey way to reference behavioral traits if your friend group already knows what they mean. i don’t know how to explain this any better

        • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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          4 days ago

          Early in our dating, my wife had me take the enneagram test. I got a 2, she’s a 9. I told her I found a page detailing relationships between 2’s and 9’s and some of the strengths and weaknesses we’d navigate as a couple.

          As I was reading it she kept saying, at first, “That makes sense!” Or “Yeah I can see that.” There were a few that were kind of out there. But she kept listening.

          Eventually I revealed to her that I was ACTUALLY reading a page detailing relationships between a dragon and a sheep, our respective Chinese Zodiac signs. And that I was using this to support my argument that personality tests are astrology for educated people.

          Still ended up getting laid, though not that day. 😅

          • kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz
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            3 days ago

            Personally I do find it interesting, when people do tell their Myers-Briggs -test results, since it can tell about, what sort of a person they want to be. But it is not scientific in the slightest.

        • decolo@piefed.social
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          4 days ago

          It’s clearly pseudoscientific nonsense. But it’s easier to say “I’m a pisces” instead of “I’m feeling hesitant about the future of our relationship, Sarah” if she is into that. The value is in being able to reference loose personality archetypes without having to spend a paragraph describing someone.

          • SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            But being a Pisces doesn’t mean anything, does it? It could both mean being someone who is afraid of risks and someone who is bold and takes chances.

            How is it easier?

            • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              it means what people want it to mean.

              And that’s why Astrology is so powerful. it’s 100% projection and bias confirmation.

              ‘take chances’ is entirely relative. what is a bold risk for one person, is an afterthought for another person, but in astrology there is no specific context, just vague nonsense worded such that anyone can project onto it.

            • decolo@piefed.social
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              4 days ago

              It’s all contextual, honestly, but here are my impressions of the uh, categories:

              Pisces: wishy washy, both sides, indecisive, peacemaker, likes blue stuff

              Capricorn: hustle culture, hates fun

              Taurus: confident, aggressive, clumsy, bro-ish

              I don’t have any others on deck without looking them up lol

              Edit: oh my god you guys. the magical star-assigned fixed personality is dumb. what’s useful is being able to tell Becky to stop being such a Capricorn and come out and party, even if she is a cancer or whatever. it’s just a memey way to reference behavioral traits if your friend group already knows what they mean. i don’t know how to explain this any better

      • iegod@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        A trait can apply to anyone in any category. The whole premise is an exercise in the celebration of ignorance. I won’t stand for it.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 days ago

        You forgot the part about how it’s determined by giant balls of gas millions of light years away that aren’t actually arranged in neat patterns, but are actually incredibly far from one another and only look like patterns from our specific position in the universe

      • ickplant@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That argument falls flat to me simply because there are 13 zodiac signs, not 12, and ancient (and modern) astrologers simply ignore the 13th one (Ophiuchus) for convenience.

        If you are going to claim the stars have influence over our personalities, at least be consistent with how you “read” said stars.

        Not to mention, there is zero evidence that astrology works.

        • Bytemite@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Also, at the time most of the zodiac and star chart arrangements were plotted out, the Earth had an entirely different north star than it does now. So your modern star sign would not even be consistent with the ancient charts and star signs, yet somehow all the same definitions and assumptions are supposed to apply.

          • ickplant@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I can appreciate that view point as long as we are in agreement that there is no real science behind it. I can totally see how people use “I’m such a Pisces” to describe themselves as sensitive and emotional. I just wish they would say “I’m sensitive and emotional” instead, lol.

            • decolo@piefed.social
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              3 days ago

              I tried to express that as clearly as I could, it’s just like a more ethical version of Slytherin/gryffindor/etc, I tend to be friends with excessively referential people I guess.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Dated a girl and, while we were walking through the park, she points up at the sky. “Oh look, Chemtrails”. I absolutely bust up laughing, because I assume I’ve accidentally stepped into a relationship with a conspiracy theorist. She looks incredibly confused. I explain what chemtrails are. She gets even more confused. We whip out our phones for a minute. She says, “Omg I meant contrails”

      She’s a lawyer at a white shoe firm now and makes, like, twice as much as I do in IT. Also, absolutely incredible in the sack.

      • Wander@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        First day of uni. Having lunch with 3 people.

        “Hey do any of you watch my little pony?”

        I burst out laughing. Turns out guy was super serious. He was convincing enough that he managed to get me to watch half of friendship is magic before I decided i would never talk to him again.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Oh wow, with all the memes I’ve only ever learned the word “chemtrails”. Don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “contrails” before, even though that certainly makes a lot more sense…

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      There are more stupid people than non-stupid people.

      Getting laid is a numbers game. You vastly reduce your chances if you start getting picky.

      • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        But maybe, just maybe, and I know I’m talking crazy here, but maybe if you weed out the ones that aren’t worthwhile your quality will go up.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          for a lot of people being picky means they will never get laid. and that’s fine, if you can accept that.

          but they don’t. they are enraged by the lack of ‘quality’ people available to them. and offended by the abundance of low quality people available to them.

          the idea you can ‘raise your standards’ and get ‘better results’, in dating/mating, is mostly cope. Especially when you start looking at the statistics. truth is people really should lower them, and well, humble themselves. because most folks aren’t nearly as ‘hot’ as they perceive themselves to be.

          it’s also highly subjective. I attract a lot of very desirable women, but they aren’t desirable to me due to my own biases and lifestyle preferences. Just yesterday I got like half dozen likes from women on Hinge, but they all worked in finance or pharma, so I rejected them because for me working in those industries means ‘low quality’ just like believe in astrology. But if I wanted to get laid? Yeah I should get over that bias, those type of women really like me, even though I hate them. And I only developed this bias due to my younger years… repeatedly trying to date them and running into the same miserable issues again and again.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        It’s a good thing nobody is doing that, then. Nowhere near half of women believe that nonsense.

        • boonhet@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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          3 days ago

          Oh sorry, only 43% of women aged 18-49, I guess 43% is nowhere near half. I suppose if you’re a granny chaser then it is indeed only a quarter. If you’re into LGBT folks, it actually goes above 50% (over 60% for LGBT women).

          Since my own dating pool and most of my friendships are smack dab in the middle of that 18-49 demographic, I can tell you it’s easily around half of women around that age who believe in astrology, tarot or something else similar here in Estonia, so it’s not US specific either. Including a lot of otherwise very intelligent women. A master’s degree in a STEM field for example does not discourage one from believing in astrology by any means.

          Or perhaps you just don’t know enough women?

          Oh and men aren’t all innocent either. A fifth of men aged 18-49 believe in astrology or similar superstitions too. Less than half as many as women, but still a significant amount.

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            3 days ago

            Wow that statistic is way more depressing than I realized. I guess I am lucky to only be surrounded by non-crazy women.

            • boonhet@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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              3 days ago

              I suspect a lot of the women you know believe it but don’t talk about it unless prompted. Luckily the “oh you’re a whatever sign, it would never work” level of belief seems uncommon among even those who do believe.

          • waterwasamistake@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            We really need to distinguish between “stupid” opinions and “stupid” people.

            Very smart people can hold very stupid opinions in some aspects and the average person will certainly hold some stupid ass opinions not necessarily restricted to “spirituality”.

            My uncle was top of his class but fell for every mlm he encounterd, my dad is a capable businessman but believes a cut up onion in the window will get all viruses out of the air. I have so many examples like that.

            So half of women aren’t stupid but probably 100% of all people hold at least one stupid “believe” i think.

          • hissing meerkat@sh.itjust.works
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            3 days ago

            And 100% of gamers have pressed the randomize button to at the start of a game to see if it’s something they can identify with.

            Consulting Tarot has as much to do with thinking it’s scientifically real as flipping a coin has to do with making objective decisions.

            Astrology and personality tests that get sold to businesses and a ton of other “fake” things all work the same way: they propose things that are frequently or universally true and then invite people to look at in what ways they agree with them or how they fit current situations.

            Calling these things fake is the same as saying the personal reflections of people aren’t real.

  • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    A rather free love friend of a friend was trying to fuck guys from every sign of the zodiac, and she hadn’t gotten to Cancer yet. As an amateur astronomer now, and a child who was raised by a lunatic into all sorts of woo, I declined on principle.

    Look, have your fun. But woo is a relationship red flag for me. You cannot remind me of my mother if you want me turned on. I haven’t gotten laid countless times. I don’t need or want sex that badly. I desire someone I can trust to keep a firm grasp on reality.

      • freely1333@reddthat.com
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        3 days ago

        Pretending to believe in astrology to get laid is kind of rapey by today’s standards.

        • dellish@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          What’s the difference in pretending to believe in astrology and pretending to be interested in anything else they’re saying?

          • zoltanshields@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            I just hit them with the “Oh wow that’s crazy yeah I don’t really know much about all of that tbh”.

            • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              i did that on my last date when she started talking to me about biotec startups to invest in privately because she wasn’t getting enough return on her stock portfolio and she was expected a double digit return or how else could she retire comfortably?

        • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          We have been married for 46 years now. Despite the fact she was into astrology and I listened intensely to her about it in the beginning. It is called learning everything about each other. And if anyone was “rapey”, it was her. These days she laughs and says it was the rebellious catholic upbringing in her, (I still call her a recovering Catholic). And that I was oblivious to all the hints she was dropping in front of me.

          It all just one of the many shared memories we have together. I wouldn’t give any of them up for life itself.

            • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              and what if the more drunk person threatens you if you don’t rape them? or worse, threatens to tell others you raped them if you don’t rape them?

              what do you do then? I’ve been in that situation a couple of times. Not a fun place to be. Sometimes doing the right thing gets you punished.

          • freely1333@reddthat.com
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            3 days ago

            If the guy doesn’t believe as much it’s rape but if the woman doesnt believe as much it’s not.

          • forkDestroyer@infosec.pub
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            3 days ago

            Save yourself time and don’t lie about who you are.

            This is also job application advice. If you never smile in real life but you pretend to act bubbly for an entire interview: your ass better bubble like a pro if you’re hired.

            But ymmv

            • mika_mika@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I bought an astrology tapestry when I was in university. I don’t buy into astrology really but the tapestry served its purpose.

            • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              what if the other person doesn’t believe the truth about who you are?

              personally, I’ve noticing people accusing me of lying when I’m telling the truth frequently. And when I lie, they think I’m telling the truth and never question it.

              Weird how that works.

    • Sordid_Seraphim@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Secret 4th option, there is so much worse you could believe in.

      Why let something as silly as that stop you from participating in a relationship that you might otherwise enjoy?

      As long as it’s not harmful why is it an issue?

  • FluidBeef@quokk.au
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    3 days ago

    I had several friends at school with the same birthday as me, so obviously we had the same personality and all the same stuff kept happening to us.

  • protist@retrofed.com
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    4 days ago

    I have a pretty large, coed friend group, and roughly 50% of the women are into astrology, while none of the men are. Personally, I could never date someone who took astrology seriously. Fortunately, unlike this meme tries to paint them, there are many women who don’t take astrology seriously.

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      my wife “believed” in astrology before and while we were first dating. she used it as an easy way to weed out which guys couldn’t get over themselves over a trivial difference in perspective and figure out how to compromise.

      turns out we would both read the astrology section of the newspaper growing up and giggle about how wrong it was. she just figured out a way to use it to find the right people.

      • protist@retrofed.com
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        3 days ago

        Oh this is definitely the case. When I was younger, I was definitely the kind of guy to publicly ridicule things like astrology, and I learned that would make me no friends. Today I’d much rather surround myself with people who act kind to each other and accept each other. Y’all are totally on that same page.

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          yup. my idiot brother consciously made it his personality to dislike everything. he still can’t figure out why he doesn’t have friends. i’ve tried explaining how you build closer relationships over stuff you like rather than stuff you dislike. he doesn’t like that.