Dating advice that makes sense? Why does it have to be astrology?!

After yesterday's moan about most dating advice saying I'm not a man, I thought I would share the one source of advice that seems to get me quite well.

Astrology.

Now, I am a sceptic, and as far as I am concerned I have seen very little to convince me that there is any basis whatsoever to astrology. Horoscopes have never given me any accurate description of the day about to come, and when I tested the Old Moore's Almanack predictions for 2008, the results came out against viewing astrology as a useful predictive measure. For that reason, what follows rankles a little with me, because it offends my sceptical, scientific mind.

I was born under Cancer, and typify the description of a Cancerian in ways that I do not feel like I fit any of the other star signs (an important test of any such personality-science claim is to see whether or not you fit any of the other categories equally well). That means that astrological advice on how to date me might just work, where other advice might not.

The Compatibility and Love blog has a post under its astrology section called How to Win a Cancer's Heart (specifically, a Cancerian man's heart), and for once the advice, while not completely applicable to Yours Truly, certainly gets a lot closer than the stuff I see elsewhere in describing what the messages are that I am sending.

It opens by talking about food, and with the old stereotype/cliché that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" (which always makes me think of the response, "Well, it is if you're stabbing upwards through his belly..."). Now, I self-identify as a tubby bitch, and certainly enjoy my food, but really, it's not a key thing.

Nevertheless, when the writer says, "If your Cancer partner loves cooking then support him in that and buy him little things for the kitchen," that has some element of truth. Inasmuch as, in general supporting someone in something they love doing is generally a good way to show you relate to them and respect them and want them to be happy. I definitely like gifts of spices and herbs and nicknacks for my kitchen, because I like cooking. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is the "best way to win his heart." Cook for me, or encourage me in my cooking, yes, very much appreciated, but it's not the big deal I see that post claiming it to be.

Much better is the rest of the advice. "They are also great nurturers and so, if you’d like a bit of pampering and indulgence stick around with your Cancer partner." Definitely true for me. Althoug, because of being a Dom and a sadist, "pampering" can include spanking, and "indulgence" can include denial and bondage, too. But the spirit with which those things are meant often really is one of pampering and nurture and indulgence! (Is it any wonder that I have a certain fondness for the Daddy Dom type role?)

To win their heart don;t be skimpy with payments. Pay your own way; buy them treats; be seductive and stay grounded. Cancerians love grounded people.

With the principles I laid out in my earlier post about "who pays for a date?", I think readers will be well aware that "pay your own way" is important - but so is the ability to give treats, not just receive them.

Being grounded is also very good - being able to take flight is also good, but the sense of having "someone to come home to" is important to me. Readers may recall that my standards and checklists post listed under "Dislikes/turn-offs", that I dislike it when a woman appears to be always travelling (i.e. a long list of places they've been, and a longer list of places they want to go). In the original text, I added "Just settle down already!" to that point.

Possibly the part that strikes truest for me, though, is the final point where the post talks about a Cancer needing to retreat for a while:

Cancers are known for going off and thinking about things when the going gets tough. ... Give them that space and they will come back to you pretty quickly.

It's been a feature of my behaviour since I was very small (and some people called it "sulking" when I did). But if you give me space to sort out my head, then yep - it's definitely appreciated. And, just to be clear, it needn't be a huge amount of physical space: if I'm just sitting and thinking, as long as I can do so in peace, I don't always mind if you're actually there at the same time (if I need to retreat physically to another room, don't sweat it either).

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All of which frustrates my scientific, sceptical mind, because astrology doesn't work!

One of the sources I have for advice on writing fiction suggests using a star sign as the basis of the underlying personality of a character in your story to help you differentiate characters from one another in writing them. It seems to me that in that way, there is some value in the astrological approach. I'm a typical Cancer, and happen to have been born in the right part of the year for that to fit the astrological theory; but if my personality were the same and I'd been born a month earlier or later, then it would still be useful to know that I was typical of the Cancerian personality type.

In my previous post about dating advice, I complained about the universal assumptions applied concerning men, and how I don't fit the statements often made by "experts" about what "men" are like. The benefit that can be gained from the astrologers' advice on dating is that it automatically bases its assumptions on there being different types of men, and different types of women, who interact in ways peculiar to their type. It removes that universalised basis for advice. As outlined above, there's a type of advice from astrology that actually applies reasonably well for me, because it isn't trying to apply the same principles to everybody.

I don't think astrology is a great basis for anything. Although the principles evolved over the course of many centuries based on the experiences and learning of its practitioners, I don't think that there is much scientific basis for its classifications of personality types (regardless of the clearly barmy idea that personality type is linked to when in the year you were born!) and it is basically developed on the basis of anecdotal evidence.

Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear to me that dating advice would benefit from a more nuanced approach that recognised different types more explicitly and was based on deliberate observation. There are some people who have developed quite broad categories (fewer than half a dozen), but I feel like these don't have the depth, instead tending to group too many characteristics together under one label (for example, Dr Helen Fisher's theory about neurochemicals setting temperament - when I get a chance, I intend to read and review her dating advice book that's based on it).

The sort of thing I'm describing as ideal, the obvious structure that springs to mind is the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Inventory - the thing that produces four-letter codes like ETSP and so on, that some employers use to decide if you're a Manager or an Architect or whatever). There certainly are websites out there that claim to have advice or matching techniques (particularly dating websites) based on MBTI, but the most rational advice seems to be this piece from The Mind Behind, which concludes that it's really based on guesswork which types match well with which other types, or if there's any actual influence at all. As far as how to make sense of how your date of MBTI type "abcd", I haven't seen much in the first ten pages on Google for [MBTI dating advice].

Obviously, for the practical advice-giving side, any scheme of dating-personality types would have to have some quick, effective and reliable form of diagnostic of the type of person you're trying to date (e.g. Is he a Fire cake personality? Is she a Water doughnut personality? or whatever the terms for the classifications might be...) If you can't figure out fairly easily what type of person you are dealing with (i.e. without putting them through a long quiz and totting up scores) then it's not a realistic approach in most dating circumstances, especially if you want to figure out, "is zie all that into me?" and even more so if you want to figure out how to make a good first impression! Astrology has a short-cut because most people know their star sign (and if they don't, they know their own birthday!) - the problem is that it relies on assumption instead of diagnosis to make that short-cut. I have heard claims that the Enneagram system can provide a more appropriate "quick diagnostic" of a person's type, although personally I remain sceptical of its value.

The scheme should then also give accurate assessments of what's going on - it needs to get it right when it says, "zie's just not that into you" and also when it says, "this one could be a keeper." Similarly, it should give accurate advice on how best to indicate your own interest in them.

I am not the best placed person to try to develop it myself, of course. My suspicion is that the typical personality-type tests (enneagram, MBTI, Big-5, etc) are not finely-tuned to the specific situations of dating, romance and so on. Inasmuch as the generalised approach to communication is covered by these schemes, they do have some relevance, but I think the specific elements that come through in dating are not so clearly defined. I suspect that Dr Fisher's work, while closely focussed on dating structures, suffers from a particular mindset in terms of what's going on (i.e. she seems to come primarily from a neurological/biochemical interpretation). It needs something that is based specifically on how people actually behave when dating and/or in a relationship. Unfortunately, a lot of people with a "one-size-fits-all" viewpoint (I'm looking at you, various different schools of PUA thought) insist that their observations support their theory that all people do it the same way.