FiSh Of a FiN LiKe To sWiM [aPaRt]

Here we go, more awkward conversations. Last week was the {groan} mandatory monthly office birthday celebration. Not that celebrating someone's birthday itself is painful or awkward, it's more the fact that despite all of us get along really well, when certain equations are added to the mix it's quite painful.

Last Wednesday (like many Wednesdays before) we all gathered in the kitchen, sang happy birthday and attempted to make small talk while the Dwight Schrute and Michael Scott of our office eavesdrop and made extraneous, confusing, awkward comments. Among the superfluous conversations taking place around me was one about astrological signs. Now I'll be honest, the only thing I know is that I'm a Pisces. I also know that according to my Indian friends, I have character traits of not only a Pisces but an Aquarius as well--something to do with being at the beginning of the sign. Now if you asked me what those character traits are, I have no idea, I just know that I have them.

When I admitted this fact to the women of the office, they were a bit shocked. One even asked, "have you never noticed that all your friends are of a similar sign? My mom once told me that the reason you have so much fun at a good friend's wedding is because the people there are all similar to you--and that's because they have the same characteristics i.e. the same sign!"

I was a bit intrigued by this twist of "birds of a feather flock together" and decided to do a little experiment. I listed the names of 50 people who's company I feel I enjoy the most and with whom I share the most affection, and listed them by sign. I then created a percentage graph (above) to see if there really was a larger percentage of my friends in one sign over the other. While I don't think these statistics blow anything out of the water, apparently if you are Taurus (16 percent), Leo (16 percent) or Aquarius (12 percent) I'm more than twice as likely to want to be your friend than if you're my kindred Pisces (4 percent) or basically anything else. Now maybe if I narrowed the list down a bit the percentages would change, but that would require more work and apparently along with being adaptable, intuitive, easy going and creative, Pisces are lazy, so I have an excuse not to...