I asked an astrologer for guidance on my love life, here’s how it went

“How you come across is actually really different to how you’re feeling. It’s the opposite. Your rising sign is on the opposite side of the zodiac to your sun and your moon.”

I’ve always been a bit self-centred when it comes to star signs. I know a fair bit about my own sign (Libra), and not much at all about any of the others. But don’t mistake this disinterest in the other zodiac signs for a general disinterest in astrology; if anything, I associate so strongly with being a Libra that I have the symbol for my sign tattooed on my wrist, wear a gold Libra necklace and regularly make instantly close friendships with Libra women (because Libras famously love other Libras).

But while I know a lot about my sun sign – that’s the sign we’ve grown up associating ourselves with and scanning horoscopes for – I know virtually nothing about my moon and rising sign. I know even less about how, if at all, these signs and my overall birth chart impact my love life. So when Bumble reached out and asked whether I’d like a one-on-one session with its in-house astrologer, I thought ‘Why not?’.

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Your first thought is probably ‘Bumble has an in-house astrologer??’ and I’ll admit, I was surprised too. But when you think about the prevalence of star sign discussions on dating apps, it starts to make a bit more sense. Research earlier this year from Bumble found that people in Australia who added the ‘astrology’ badge to their profile experienced 78 per cent more matches in a month than people who don’t, so clearly there’s something to it.

Emma Vidgen is the dating app’s resident astrologer (a job you’d have a difficult time explaining to anyone over the age of 40) and my session took place virtually over Zoom. I had to fill out a brief form prior to the meeting, giving some topline insights into my relationship status and what type of takeaways I was looking for from the session. For context, I’ve been single for almost a decade, with periods of actively dating people for months at a time, but never anything longer than eight or so months. For much of my twenties, my failure to lock down a long-term relationship has caused me a lot of anguish.

I’ve struggled with anxiety and chronically low self-esteem which massively impacted the way I dated throughout this time – it’s only in my late twenties that I’ve questioned these damaging thought patterns and challenged myself to date as a more authentic, honest version of myself. I can clearly see now that I needed the last decade to develop the necessary self-compassion and acceptance that’s helped me get on top of these issues and develop a more robust self-esteem. 

Written in the stars

Emma specialises in evolutionary astrology, which connects two points in your birth chart in order to look into past lives and the karmic baggage we’ve come into this life to resolve. So what’s the importance of your birth chart, exactly? “All astrologers believe there is great significance in that moment that you chose to incarnate. And so this basically tells us where all the planets were when you took your first breath, or around about the time that you took your first breath. And you can think of this as a kind of instruction manual that was designed just for you,” explains Emma.

“We will turn to different chapters of the chart – the different houses – to understand what’s going on, and figure out what you need to get the best support to move through it [whatever’s going on in your life at the time] and what it’s really trying to teach you.”

She describes the birth chart as being like an ingredient list that tells astrologers about your strengths and weaknesses and your challenges and dislikes. What you do with these traits is, obviously, up to you and the way you choose to live your life. So how does this play into my love life?

The sun, moon and rising signs

Before I get into that, you’ll need a little context on the differences between your sun, moon and rising signs. As I mentioned earlier, your sun is the one you’d look for when reading a horoscope. According to Emma, it “speaks to our creative fuel and the things that light us up… another way to think about the sun is that it has a lot to do with how we rationalise things. And so it’s kind of a bit like the filter that you see the world through”. It explains why I have such an easy time connecting with other Libras; we make sense of the world in a similar way.

The moon sign, Emma’s favourite celestial body in the chart, represents how we process emotions. “It’s all about how we’re feeling on the inside, it’s our emotional landscape. It’s how we like to show love in an intimate way, what we need to feel secure in relationships with other people, and also kind of how we demonstrate love. I think about it very much as our most sort of subliminal love language,” she tells me. When people are seeking advice from astrology on what they need in their relationships, it’s always the moon sign that Emma looks at first. 

“So your moon is in Libra. And it’s almost conjunct with your sun which means that they were almost lined up, so it was almost a new rune when you were born… there is this beautiful synchronicity between sort of how you rationalise the world, and also how you feel on the inside. And that is awesome because most people don’t have that. And so there’s a disconnect in how they make sense of things and how they expect the world to turn out for them, and also what they need on an emotional level. So I really feel like you’ve got an edge,” she tells me.

I vaguely knew that both my sun and moon were in Libra, but I wasn’t aware that my moon spoke more directly to the way I experience relationships (or that being a double Libra gives me an ‘edge’, something that gave me a smug glow for the rest of our session). But the most revelatory discovery for me was that my rising sign, the sign that relates to how I come across to others, is Aries.

The Aries in me

“If people met you at a party, or you walked into an office, this is like their first impression of you. And I love understanding the rising sign in the context of relationships because it helps us unpack why people have the reaction that they do to us. Because as I said, often, how we come across is not necessarily how we’re feeling. And how you come across is actually really different to how you’re feeling. It’s the opposite… your rising sign is on the opposite side of the zodiac to your sun and your moon,” she tells me.

The way I present being different to the way I’m feeling internally is certainly something I’ve experienced frequently throughout my dating career. So how does the Aries in me present to the people I date?

“It’s very fiery. It’s confident, it’s outgoing. It’s really like the first into the fray whenever there’s something going on. Definitely spontaneous and prepared to just get in and have a go… And probably, above all else, fiercely independent. So this is really interesting from the context of relationships for you,” shares Emma.

“It’s not to say that you go through life alone at all, by no means, but you have kind of a vibe about you where you wouldn’t be with someone because you wanted to not be alone, but because you really wanted to be with them.”

The discovery of this Aries element explains a lot; one part of Libraness I’ve never related to is their avoidance of confrontation. I’ve never been scared to stand up for myself, or to own my mistakes and talk through challenging situations with people in my life, particularly those I date. But Emma has more to share about the way I’m perceived, and I’m (obviously) all ears.

“Aries is ruled by Mars. And Mars is up here in Scorpio in the eighth house, chapter eight. And so the way that I described this is like, Aries is your shopfront. But Mars in Scorpio is like the manager. And so they’re really setting the office culture, for want of a better kind of metaphor, like, you know, in offices, it trickles down from the top. There’s a fearlessness about you, in terms of wanting to get to the bottom of things. And it really says to me that all of that adds up to be quite intimidating,” she shares.

Ah, the age-old ‘They’re intimidated by you’ trope. I know I’m not the first opinionated, confident and career-minded woman to have heard this line from friends after a disappointing romantic rejection, and I won’t be the last. But in all honesty, it does resonate. It’s not that I necessarily believe I’m intimidating, but after talking with Emma it’s highlighted how my romantic partners might be perceiving me in this way.

The key takeaways

There were innumerable takeaways from my hour-long session with Emma; far too many to write about here. But the other key ones are worth touching on, and reminded me to stay true to myself and what I’m looking for. My pickiness and selectiveness are traits some would argue have been detrimental to my love life, but she told me not to view them as shortcomings.

She also suggested that the double Libra in me really needs a partner who’s willing to workshop and, in her words, “Let you hash it all out and explore all the different possible scenarios of things that could happen”. This resonates; as an anxious overthinker, my mind can go to some pretty wild places. She left me with a final closing thought, and funnily enough, it’s something I’ve only recently come to terms with. “I just don’t think you’ve met your match. But I think you need to start thinking about your match as being someone that is going to be like a best friend… you want there to be some attraction, but it needs to be much deeper than that.”

After years of dating solely with chemistry and a ‘spark’ in mind, I’ve recently started focusing more on my romantic partner’s core values and way of existing in the world. What was important to me earlier in my twenties – approval, validation, proof that I’m loveable – is still a persistent buzz in the back of my mind, but it’s not what guides and informs me anymore. And looking at my love life, and the people I’ve met, Emma’s words ring true. I just haven’t met my match yet, and that’s okay.

My session with Emma genuinely helped me reframe elements of my dating history that have caused me a lot of distress over the years. It also reframed the way I view astrology; I now view it as a tool that can help me understand myself and my interactions with others more clearly. And on a superficial level, I’ve loved saying “My astrologer told me… ” whenever dating chat gets brought up. Is it a little insufferable? Perhaps. But I know the right person will find quirks like these endearing rather than annoying, and that’s an exciting thought.

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