Are You Dating a Cancer?

I was born on June 30th, which makes me a Cancer in the astrological arena.

 Cancers are the fourth sign of the Zodiac and are known to be loyal, sensitive, emotional, and we're represented by a crab because its name is derived from the Latin "cancer...which literally means "the crab." 

There have been several famous Cancerians like Ernest Hemingway, Kevin Bacon, and Bozo the Clown. How sexy is that? And throughout my dating resume, I've dated almost all of the signs--had toxic relationships with Capricorns, confusing love affairs with Taurus' and I won't even describe what happened with the Aries--except that I'm glad my therapist took payment plans. But as I've grown older and wiser, I know that relationship are as individual as the individuals in them and you can't allow silly zodiac signs to dictate your dating experience--or so I thought, until I met Santiago, my current boyfriend, who just happened to also be a Cancer.

We're each other's first--Cancers that is. I admit I was a bit excited to know that two loyal and sensitive Mexican crabs had found themselves in Brooklyn. Isn't that a making for a Disney fairytale? Anyone have a direct line to their story hotline? But once the PEA wore off, you know, the date hormone we pump out during the first 3 months of dating that makes us experience butterflies when we see one another--the real Cancers in us came out. Just this morning, we had the following exchange on the Q train.

Nando: Why are you looking at me?

Santiago: Because you're so handsome.

Nando: Really?

Santiago: Well, that and the fact that you have two nose-hairs entwined that are making this curly shape underneath your nose.

Nando: Oh My God! Why are you ruining my life?

Santiago: What?

Nando: Just be quiet and pretend it's not there...No! Don't get quiet! Talk! If you're quiet people are gonna KNOW and look over here.

As casually reached for the unruly hairs protruding from my nostrils an overwhelming sense of frustration entered my entire body--I guess that’s how Ke$ha feels when she reads her YouTube comments, but I digress. As I continued to reach and pluck, Santiago just stared at me as if I was one of those gorillas on America's Funniest Home Videos caught on tape while exercising his beauty regimen. Defeated, I gave up and figured if anyone was that close to see my defect, they deserved to see it.

Santiago: You know, they're still there.

Nando: Shut up and don't talk to me.

Santiago: Oh great, this is the back hair incident all over again!

Nando: You're never supposed to bring that up! Does it make you happy to continuously stick daggers in my heart? You can just forget about me buying freezer & storage bags tonight!

Santiago: But my cookie dough.

Nando: Well, you should have thought about that before...by the way, how does it feel? You know, to ruin another's life?

Santiago: I don't know, I'll let you know when my cough dough is destroyed.

As I exited the train, I turned around to see an angry Santiago which I realized, made me happy. As I walked home, I knew my mutant hairy body wasn’t anyone's fault--well, maybe my biological mother and father's--but that's a family tree I'll never see. Santiago pissed me off and I pissed him off and in the end, it really got us nowhere; two hyper-sensitive Mexican crabs dating in Brooklyn was a challenge we both knew we were taking on--we just didn't know nose-hairs and freezer bags would be the cost. Cancers are ultra-sensitive, we take things personal--extremely personal and we get hurt when people tell us about our nose hairs, or unsalted pico de gallo (click to see my video) or complain about the expired milk we poured into their coffee. What can we do, our temperament is written in the stars. In the meantime, I apologized to Santiago through text--don't judge...and got him storage bags. I also picked up an extra pair of tweezers to carry around with me. Ah, ain't Cancer-love grand?