Stephanie Worsop: When indulging in star signs goes too far

Can I explain away people's behaviour because they're a certain star sign? Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

Let's talk astrology.

It's all rubbish isn't it?

How could a modern, critical-thinking woman such as myself believe in such nonsense?

If you were to ask me in the street what I thought of star signs I'd say something along the lines of: "It's all vague, fabricated statements that could relate to anything or anyone. That's what draws people in, they see what they want to see."

But when I'm at home and nobody's around to judge me, I click on Buzzfeed quizzes titled: "Answer these five questions and we'll guess your star sign" and "which star signs make the best love matches".

And then I lap it up when the clearly pointed questions reveal the correct star sign or my love match is Gemini (which happens to be my husband's star sign).

It's all just a bit of fun, I justify. It's not as though I actually believe it and it doesn't do any harm to indulge in a little bit of airy-fairy mumbo jumbo, right?

Well, it shouldn't, but this little indulgence then quickly snowballs into me reading my horoscope daily (just for a laugh) and before long I'm replenishing my moon water and saying things like my zest is being zapped because Mercury is in retrograde.

And admittedly, probably the worst of my astrology-related transgressions, I was quietly thankful my son just missed out being born under a certain star sign (I'll let you guess which one).

None of this should matter but apparently for me, it's far too easy to fall into the trap of believing things like star signs because it provides order to something as random and unpredictable as personality traits.

And therein lies my reason for bringing up this topic.

When recently discussing the actions of a stubborn mutual friend of ours, I said to my husband, without a second thought, "they're a Taurus, what do you expect?"

Hubby lol'd. He actually laughed out loud and told me I was ridiculous.

I don't blame him to be honest, it was a ridiculous thing to say because in reality, our aforementioned friend just needs to be told there are more important things in life than holding a grudge about dinner and clean-up rosters.

Despite knowing better, this wasn't the first time I've explained away a person's behaviour with their star sign.

I've forgiven crappy exes, rationalised a falling out between friends and even actively sought out a friendship with someone because they were a Sagittarius.

Heck, I've even written off my own bad habits. You see, I'm not indecisive, a flirt or overly sensitive, I'm just a Libra.

I can feel you all collectively rolling your eyes! But I deserve it.

You see, I constantly live with this dichotomy in my head - one side of my brain tells me the moon affects my mood and I'm more compatible with people born in a certain month while the other side sees there's no scientific evidence for it, thus dismisses it all as hogwash.

Oh well, I guess that's the curse of being born under the sign of the scales, I'm always trying to find that balance.