Linda Goodman's Sun Signs (33 page)

You won't have to be Martha Stewart, but for goodness sakes, don't ever be naive enough to think a Virgo husband will let you feed him microwave dinners. A pleasure-seeking, selfish, mentally lazy woman will never make it with a Virgo male, even if she's fairly oozing with sex appeal. This is the very last man in the world you can expect to find running off with a blonde bimbo, though he might loan her his sweater if she's chilly. When it comes right down to the nitty gritty, he's looking for a wife—not a mistress in any sense of the word.

Virgo men have no strong yearning for fatherhood, as a rule. Their particular kind of ego doesn't seem to require children for emotional fulfillment, and Virgos tend to have small families. Yet, once a child or children have been born, the Virgo is an extremely conscientious parent, and will never take his responsibilities lightly. He'll spend many hours teaching his youngsters skills and transmitting his own high standards of conduct. He'll be cheerfully willing to help with homework and will probably make no end of sacrifices for hobbies, music lessons, camp and especially college. A Virgo father will place great emphasis on intellect and train his children rigidly in matters of ethics, courtesy and good citizenship. Even the divorced Virgo will eventually see to it somehow that his offspring are well cared for, wherever they may be, and that they get an education. Children of Virgo fathers usually grow up with both a love and respect for books and learning. You'll seldom find a Virgo parent spoiling a child, and there will always be plenty of necessary discipline. All this is fine, but there may be a need for more physical expressions of love between a Virgo father and his youngsters, since affection is not something that comes naturally to him. Unless a serious effort is made in this area from babyhood on, there's more than a small chance that he'll one day discover an insurmountable barrier has grown between him and the offspring he loves so deeply. There's also a tendency to be too critical, to expect too much too soon and be too strict.

A Virgo will expect you to fuss a bit over his health, but he'll wait on you when you're sick, too, and allow you to be a regular Camille. He may have his cranky and moody spells now and then, perhaps even frequently. But one thing is sure. If you leave him alone, he won't go out of his way to start an argument with you. Just let him get over his grumpiness and he'll surprise you with tenderness to make up for it. Let him worry. It's good for him, sort of a Virgo mental exercise. But when you see it's affecting his physical state, snap him out of it by suggesting something interesting or different to do. It isn't hard to catch the mental attention of a Virgo, though it may be hard to keep it.

Now that you know what you're in for, if you're still in love with that Virgo man, you can look forward to a pretty contented future. You'll have a husband who's alert and well-informed, who won't expect you to wait on him hand and foot or expect you to run around looking sexy all the time with a dab of perfume behind each ear and a rose in your teeth. (Although he may expect you to go around with a cake of soap in each hand.)

He'll be reliable and pleasant, if you're tactful about his faults. He won't have many of them anyway—unless you call the way he runs his finger across the furniture every night, looking for dust, a fault. Little habits like that. No matter what he does, try not to nag him. Remember, he's not constituted to be able to take the critical analysis he applies to others. Get used to his habit of criticizing you, and laugh it off with the realization that he can't help being such a sensitive hairsplitter. Once that resentment is out of the way, you can relax, and really enjoy your bright, loyal Virgo. He's not an angel. There are no wings sprouting on his shoulders. But lots of women will be jealous of you.

After all, how many women are married to a hard-working, handsome man, who's neat and tidy around the house, who remembers anniversaries and performs miracles with the checkbook? How many wives have a smart husband who dresses well, seldom goes out with the boys or makes passes at other women, and is usually gentle and considerate? Look closely again. Is that just the reflection of the street lights around his head, or could it be … ? No, it couldn't possibly be a halo. Not after the way he snapped at you when you spilled the buttered popcorn in his lap at the theatre tonight. Of course not. That cranky character? Still, there is a kind of an aura. And when he smiles—and you can see yourself in his clear eyes—well, he'll do until someone with real wings comes along.

Do you visualize the Virgo woman as a gentle, virginal maiden, pure as the driven snow? You may be about to get some illusions shattered. She is no White Rock nymph in a gauzy tunic, kneeling by the pool. Sorry to spoil your image.

A Virgo woman can leave her husband for a man she met beside some faraway ocean, bear her lover's child before the benefit of marriage, and face a hostile world with her head held high. That's not very maidenly or virginal. There's a lot to learn about this tender, fragile little symbol of spotless womanhood. For one thing, her spine is made of stainless steel.

It's quite true that she's basically shy. No argument there. Virgo women don't climb on soap boxes to make fiery, aggressive speeches or chop up saloons with hatchets, like Carry Nation. They don't get arrested for drunken driving, either, and I'll give you a five dollar bill for every one you find featured in a burlesque show. But a Virgo woman is a woman. She has all the necessary wiles and weapons, including a determination to pursue happiness wherever the path happens to lead her. A few prickly thorns along the way won't cause her either to faint or cry weakly for help.

When you hear of a Virgo woman who has outraged the laws of society, be sure you read between the lines. She is basically pure-minded—true. But so is love. Real love. And Virgo is not interested in any other kind. She'll climb the tallest mountains and storm the raging seas in galoshes and a pea jacket, once the spirit of Mercury has been exalted, which can considerably dim that wispy, chiffon image. A Virgo woman who recognizes her marriage as imperfect and finds a love without a flaw (or thinks she has, which is the same thing), won't hesitate to cut former ties. When she uses the knife, she'll be as cool and precise as a surgeon. Much as she hates to break the family circle, the Virgo hates hypocrisy more.

Once she's accepted a love as true and ideal, the purity of her own concept of the relationship reigns supreme over all the pieces of legal paper in the world. She's the one woman in the zodiac who can be deadly practical and divinely romantic at the same time. That situation of the love affair beside some faraway ocean may seem casual and immoral on the surface. Actually, it's a predictable example of a Virginian behaving true to character when caught in a difficult decision. She'll suffer agonies of embarrassment over the condemnation of society in such an affair, but that won't alter her course of action any more than it will alter the purity of her motivation. It's a perfect example of the firm practicality of Virgo's earth element, blended with the mental, airy, ideal-seeking Mercury. There's a white heat to Virgo love, once it's ignited, that can put the passions of other Sun signs to shame by its very intensity and singleness of purpose. Igniting it may take some time, however.

I will admit that the fiery, physical aspect of love may be somewhat subdued in the typical Virgo female, but there's a mysterious, quiet, waiting quality in this woman and “passion of the spirit” is a most satisfactory substitute to men who prefer the delicacy of understatement in romance.

She's a perfectionist, but that doesn't mean that she herself is perfect. She has her negative traits, and they can be very trying. To begin with, Virgo females have this dogged belief that no one can do things as orderly and as efficiently as they can. What really drives you wild is that—usually—no one can. They're also sticklers for promptness. Did you ever keep a Virgo woman waiting for a date? When she's upset or cranky, she won't rage and storm and break bottles over your head, but she can be shrewish and fussy when you've annoyed her. You might as well expect a frank scolding. An occasional Virgo woman can come pretty close to behaving like a virago, but most of them don't carry it that far. Take her flowers, Admit you're wrong and don't argue. It won't do you a bit of good, you can't win with a Virgo. The earth is her element, so she appreciates the creations of nature, and the posies will soften her irritation. As for the apologies, keep them brief and accurate. The Virginian is nobody's fool. Her clarity of vision will spot an elaborate lie by the smoothest talker, and the faintest smear of lipstick on the edge of a collar. She may be pure-minded, but she's certainly not naive.

I'm not implying that she'll go through your laundry, at least not before you're married. After that, it will be in her house, and she won't feel so guilty about it.

This woman has a mental block when it comes to admitting she's wrong—like a block of wood right in front of her brain—so you'd be smart to take the blame right away. Most of the time, she'll be right, frustrating though it may be. So why fight it? When you've put her back into her normal mood, she's such an exquisite delight, you won't care who won or lost.

If you can bear the wound to your male ego, you might profit from taking her financial advice, or letting her handle the budget. She's concise and practical, and she catches tiny errors even a CPA might overlook. (Unless there are afflictions in her natal aspects, or she has an impulsive ascendant.)

Brush up on your manners and your grammar if you're dating a Virgo female. She won't take kindly to abuse of the language, swearing or drinking from the finger bowl. Don't chew celery close to her ear and it's better if you pass up corn-on-the-cob altogether. That's enough of a challenge at any time, let alone trying to eat it daintily in front of her. Tell the waiter to cut it off and serve it to you on the plate. You'll never pass inspection with sloppy clothing, either. Once in love with a Virgo, you might as well resign yourself to shaving twice a day, and the same goes for showers. Splash on after shave lotion, brush off the lint, spruce up your hair, wear a fresh shirt, mind your manners, and polish your shoes before you go a-courting this Virginian. And here's a very valuable tip: the next time you're late, pretend you don't realize what time it is. Walk in her door angrily. When she asks you what's wrong, tell her that silly, ridiculous, blasted library (that's about as profane as you'll dare to get) keeps closing five minutes before they're supposed to, according to their rules. It wouldn't be so bad now and then, but they lock the doors on you
every night
when you're quickly trying to finish up your journal research on the computer tucked away in the corner. She'll forget all about the tardiness.

Don't take her to Vegas and let her see you throw away a week's pay on Russian Roulette. Save your off-color stories for the boys at lunch, and tell her constantly you're glad she's not the flighty type. You are, aren't you? She's not a clinging vine, either. Virgo goes to no extremes. She can take care of herself, thank you. But she doesn't have to act like a man to do it.

Don't overpower her with your physical charms or bear hug her on the subway, and don't rush the goodnight kiss on the first or even the tenth date—wait for better things. In general, underplay the whole scene. Move in slowly, with grace and taste, or you'll end up in the orchestra pit with all the other banjo thumpers. Speaking of the theater, she'll probably love it. Parades, too. The pomp and pageantry, the dramatic emotion, give her an outlet for her own tightly controlled emotions. Besides, she's one great critic. Her highly developed intellect and artistic taste combine to give her a keen perception. If you could make Broadway producers understand this, you'd be showered with free passes to out-of-town openings. A Virgo woman will call the critics' reviews in advance almost every time. Discrimination is one of her keywords. She loves plays, concerts and books, but she's severely critical of the content. She's just as critical of your appearance and how you wear your hair, what you do and what you say. To criticize is as natural to her as breathing is to you. Virgo is the eternal perfectionist, and without her, we would all be pretty messy and sloppy around the edges. Don't criticize her, however. That's against the rules. The golden rule definitely does not apply here. What she does to you, you'd better not do to her. Her crystal-clear thinking makes her inwardly as aware of her own imperfections as she is of yours, and she judges herself frequently and harshly, which is why she feels she doesn't need any help from you. Of her it can be truly said that she's “her own worst critic.”

One nice thing about being in love with this woman is that she'll do all your worrying for you, and possibly even enjoy it. She'll keep you from goofing without robbing you of your manhood, an art that women born under other Sun signs might well imitate.

As for the matter of faithfulness, you may hear of a rare Virgo female who, for her own unfathomable reasons, has decided to toss away virtue with a vengeance, but there's usually a desire to prove something to herself at the bottom of such a spree, and it won't last long. Virgo females who take an occasional whirl down the primrose path of promiscuity are clever enough to cover up the lapse, and such behavior is most certainly an exception. Ordinarily, if she really loves you, you'd be safe to trust the typical Virginian woman with the sexiest man you know on a desert island for a month. For two months? Well, Virgos are human, you know. They're not walking, talking computers. They have hearts warmer than people suspect, and emotions that can thunder with feeling, even if they don't care to rent a billboard to advertise it. The emotional nature of Virgo is controlled, but not nonexistent. Remember that. It will give you courage.