Disclaimer: this is a cautionary tale. No disrespect to any Cancer people; but, it’s not me, it’s you.

I used to think zodiac signs and astrology weren’t issues to heavily focus on when it came to dating. I’ve always been interested in the stuff, but mostly because it’s cool to see what comes up for you. Typically, I tend to believe that astrology pages say things that anyone would love to claim like, “capricorns love to make money” or “scorpios don’t take any crap from anyone.” However, all that changed when I met the cancer who flipped my outlook on life and zodiac compatibility.

For anonymity’s sake, let’s call him Kyle. I met Kyle during a summer session at my university. He was a good 6’3, a model with the body and face to show it, and the attitude of a CEO. Kyle saw me working an event for my internship and had his friend talk to me for him. Lord knows I’m a sucker for a shy guy.

His friend chatted me up and asked if I was single, I told her that I was, of course, and he finally made his move. After he got up the nerve to talk to me, we set up a time to hang out. Kyle was very charismatic. Oddly enough, on our first “date” he told me he was a cancer because I met him on his birthday; but, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it because I hadn’t known very many cancers before meeting him.

I was passed the middle school phase of putting our names in the compatibility calculator to see if we were meant to be. So, I just left it up to fate (probably my biggest mistake to date).

i talked to Kyle for the rest of the summer and, for what it’s worth, Kyle was a great summer fling. He taught me a lot about myself and how to visualize my success by turning my ambition into a tangible thought and making things happen. Looking back on it, I truly think his ambition and his ingenuity stopped me from really seeing the crazy that lurked underneath.

While I liked Kyle a lot, there were some things he did that I couldn’t stop worrying about. He changed his lifestyle too frequently. Some days he would wake up and quit everything cold turkey– drugs, alcohol, meat, dairy. He would go months like this and eventually relapse. Sometimes, I would leave early and go to work, and leave him to sleep after saying goodbye. One morning, I left for work and came home for a quick lunch break to see that he had organized all of my shoes in my closet. At the time, I thought he was just incredibly thoughtful, a bit of a neat freak, but, still a sweet guy for taking the time to do it.

I quickly found that the shoe organizing wasn’t just a strange foot fetish. Kyle knew that I kept the doors to my apartment suite and room unlocked (I frequently lost my keys and my roommate had her own agenda) but, that didn’t change my shock when I came home from work and found him in my apartment unannounced and uninvited. I could tell he saw no problem with being in my place even though I wasn’t there because the same incident happened multiple times. For a brief period, I questioned if he had a home to go to because he always seemed to find his way into mine.

However, he and I were always finding a way to reason through his strange habits. Kyle had these moments where he was very intense. He had a strict morning routine that he followed every day. He listened to gospel music, repeated motivational mantras to himself in the mirror, and he assured himself that this day would be more successful than his last. In hindsight, his ambition was his most attractive feature. While some took it as a bit anal, I thought he was determined. If I came to him with a minor problem, he came back to me with a major solution.

After awhile, I traded in our hot summer nights for fall study sessions as my classes began and just like the heat faded away, our summer fling fizzled out for me. I was too busy to keep up a relationship and Kyle was all over the place with his head and his ideas that I couldn’t keep up. We argued a lot, but we finally decided to call it quits. Well, I thought we did.

After about two weeks into this “break up,” Kyle called me. Apparently, in his mind, we were still together and he was never serious about quitting when we both clearly stated we were done. So we continued talking for some time. (I know. I’m stupid.) If you ever try to break up with someone and they say no– run for the hills because they’re crazy and they’ll chop you up into little pieces.

After a couple more weeks into our continued dating, Kyle just fell off the face of the earth. No calls, no texts, nothing. Kyle also had a weird phone plan so while this sometime happened, I knew this time it was something different. After a bout two weeks with no contact, I received a call from Kyle– and he acted like nothing had even happened!

Clearly, by this point, I was completely and entirely finished. I ended things finally and blocked his number, email, and his accounts on all social media platforms to finally wash my hands clean of the cancer who ruined all cancers for me.

While I clearly had a crazy and tumultuous experience with this cancer, I will say, Kyle taught me a very valuable lesson in compatibility. He taught me that while astrology isn’t the final determining factor on couples making it today, it’s still important to know the types of people you’re dealing with.

As a Capricorn, I’m attracted to ambition because I need someone to match my boss attitude and work ethic. I always catch myself being attracted to the crazy ambitious “Get rich or die trying” type. However, Cancers could never be the one for me. Cancers are super emotional– too emotional for me. In fact, they’re ruled by their emotions. It explained everything: the intensity of his emotions, his acting on random whims, the random moments with no contact. Because of this man, I’ll probably never consider dating another cancer again because it was just so terrible. Him being so crazy was probably not even a cancer thing, but after talking to other cancers, I think all cancers have the capacity to reach his level of craziness, they just haven’t met the person to bring it out of them yet. Either way, they can keep that shit away from me.

It still never found an explanation for the weird foot thing, but I’ll leave that between him and whatever God he worships now.