The LIBRA Man

The LIBRA Man

You'll get plenty of free advice from this man. Hell have the perfect solution to all your problems and an answer for every question you ask. But there's no use expecting him to be the answer to all your girlish dreams. He'll change some of them and argue with others. A Libra male can be as cranky as a crocodile with poison ivy, and his habit of rationalizing everything, including love, will drive you to frenzy-or leave you limp with defeat.

Still, I must warn you that once you're caught and en­meshed in the Libran charm, it won't be easy to break away. Trying to escape from a bear trap is a cinch, com­pared to liberating yourself from a Libran man. If you try to run, he'll persuade you to stay with such logical, intelli­gent arguments you couldn't hope to top them unless you graduated from Harvard Law School. In addition to using his unmatched reasoning powers on you, he'll turn so sweet and gentle you'll forget the frustrating inconsistencies of his nature that upset you before. Then he'll smile at you and something will happen inside. Your heart will turn over.

From that moment on, the battle will be lost. His dreams will be your dreams, and nothing will matter so much as making him happy. You'll seek that smile and need it to survive the way a thirsty traveler needs water. Only a really hard-hearted Hannah could resist a Libran smile, and she'd have to summon all her determination to avoid being magnetized by its purity. The Libran charm is not like the hypnotic persuasion of the Scorpio. The attraction of Libra is logicul and real, not supernatural in any sense. There's no black magic about it, just common sense submission to his heavenly aura.

On the other hand, to use his favorite catch phrase, there will be times when those Libra scales dip back and forth with crazy contradiction. You'll have to shout at him, push him into the lake, or stand on your head to get his atten­tion and force him to make a move. Don't be so naive as to think love will be smooth and eternally tranquil, even if he is ruled by Venus. If you're up on your Roman mythology, you're aware that Venus had her off days. Still, when the scales balance, life with Libra can be as intoxicat­ing as a goblet of golden ambrosia, with lots of laughs and a casual freedom known only to the gods who cavort on Olympus.

Making up his mind is a chore no less strenuous to the average Libran male than taming a wild buffalo, and once he's made it up, he's liable to change it with no warning if he suspects he's made a mistake. There's a woman I know Who hoped to go into a business partnership with a Libran, and she learned the hard way about this legendary Libra idiosyncrasy. They had a breakfast appointment together one summer morning, and both of them were full of en­thusiastic, optimistic plans for the future. After he dropped her off on the way to his office, she began to worry. His promises were almost too good to be true, so she phoned him, just to make sure she hadn't been dreaming. He was still excited, he repeated all his promises and ambitious plans, and they made a date to get together again the fol­lowing week. Before they hung up, he guessed what was on her mind and reassured her. "By the way," he re­marked, "I want to say something, since I won't see you again for a few days." He hesitated slightly (she missed that clue), then continued with conviction. "I wanted to tell you that, well-I guess what I wanted to say is don't worry. I won't change my mind. We'll go through with it, just the way we planned."

The next week, when he didn't call, she phoned him again. "Were you out of town?" she asked. "No," he said slowly. "I didn't call you because I wanted to think it over." A long pause. "I think I should try something with a smaller budget first. We'll get together on our project next spring. I promise. It's just that, well, I've decided it's best to wait until then, and put it on the shelf for a while, you know?"

Filled with natural resentment and disappointment after such an unexpected letdown, she made a decision of her own. She would never speak to him again. The man was obviously undependable, untrustworthy and cruel, besides. A month later she passed him on the street, and he stopped to say hello. Caught off guard, she stammered an aloof, cool sentence or two of greeting, and instantly regretted that she hadn't cut him dead. Then he smiled. That did it. She was once more his strongest booster. He could do no wrong, even to her. To this day she defends him fiercely, and if she hears that one of his dreams got shattered, she has an illogical desire to help him pick up the pieces so he'll smile again.

Now, if that could occur when a woman is involved with a Libra man only in a business way, can you imagine your state of mind and your ability to insulate yourself if you should happen to fall in love with one of these impossible charmers? You simply can't be too careful. Steel yourself to turn your head when he smiles. Stuff cotton in your ears when he starts his convincing arguments in that smooth-as-silk voice that makes the back of your neck tingle.

The word love and the word Libra are practically syn­onymous. Libra invented romance, and refined it to an art with even more finesse than Leo, Scorpio and Taurus, which is saying a lot. The delicate strategies of Cupid are inbred Libran talents. He'll use every trick with casual ease and seldom fail to get the girl. However, once he gets her, he isn't always sure what to do with her. Having thoroughly charmed her into willing submission, he hesi­tates. Should he take advantage of her helpless state or should he propose marriage? Or both? Or neither? The mental struggle begins, and life in the garden of Eden with this particular Adam becomes' considerably less than ecstatic.

He won't lose interest in the opposite sex until he's at least ninety. It may be purely an academic interest if he's happily married, but the subject will never bore him, even if he only speculates what it would be like to whirl each pretty girl he sees around an imaginary ballroom.

Since the art of love-making comes so easily-and shockingly early-to the Libra male, and since he almost always wears the crown of success on his romantic excur­sions into love's jungle, he gets tangled up with a lot of clinging vines. Libra hates to hurt anyone's feelings, though he remains blissfully unaware of the damage done when he's in an argumentative mood. He hates to say no, and seldom realizes that postponement is more unkind than an outright break of an affair which has no chance of hap­piness. In the opposite situation when the mutual feeling is as close to sublime as humans ever reach on this earth, the prolonged agony can be equally tortuous. Only an Aquarian can be more shy of making a drastic move in one direction or another. If he senses he's being unfair to someone in his own life, to you-or to someone in your recent romantic past-there will be no end to his painful indecision. Being unfair is, to him, a crime roughly on a level with murder. The reluctance to be cruel can push him into a mistaken proposal of marriage, predestined for the divorce courts •-or else his endless procrastination can cause him to miss (he love of his life. So you can see his attitude is a two-edged sword, which can either slice away true love or cut him a piece of indigestible matrimony. Tossing out false sentiment is the cure for both.

The tendency toward fickleness in Libra men can't be denied. They do tend to trifle, especially in youth. The natural Libra impulse is to to size up every third or fourth woman they come across, and weigh her possibilities of being the true soul mate. They often get friendship and love hopelessly confused. Surprisingly, it's not often that the Libran will suffer from a broken heart, for all his dabbling and experimenting. He can forget with insulting quickness, and be less apt than anyone, except perhaps a Gemini or Sagittarius male, to allow himself to regret the memory of unrequited love or a romance that was fated never to be. He may sustain a few bruised spots, but there will be no permanent damage, except in very unusual cases. Then the hurt can be devastating beyond imagina­tion. But it happens so rarely you won't find many ex­amples. It's easier to find a soft-hearted, guileless Libra man in the clutches of a passionately determined female who has made him feel that deserting her would be a sin second only to breaking all the ten commandments at once. Caught in such a net, he can be a pretty miserable prisoner of love. But both extremes are the exceptions, and most Libra men manage to keep free enough to enjoy romance to the fullest, without letting sentimental ties rope them in.

He isn't too interested in rooting out your secrets. He may seem to be, at first glance, but take a second look. Often he misses what's going on two inches under his nose.

Everyone will notice what's happening but him. Though he'll argue until hell freezes over, his purpose is not to dig out personal motives, but to dwell on abstract theories so that he can reach a balanced judgment. His questions aren't aimed at uncovering anyone's hidden neurosis. He just wants to sort the facts and assemble them in the proper places. He'll discuss pros and cons with brilliant logic and astute rationalization, and his conclusion will usually be fair, accurate, sensible and practical. Not even Solomon in all his wisdom could top a typical Libran's final, balanced decision. But he doesn't have the inclination to figure the personal nuances or emotional tangles that lie just beneath the surface. The facts and the facts alone are sufficient. The Piscean, Scorpio or Aquarian's deep penetration of character would, to his mind, muddy the crystal-clear picture he seeks. He instinctively feels that such psychological examination is out of his line. It is.

If you're extravagant, he'll simply deduce that you spend money like water; therefore you aren't a good credit risk. The fact that you seek emotional security by wasting cash isn't in his field. He's not your psychiatrist. If you're stingy, he's only interested in carefully examining your thrift to form an accurate appraisal of your customs. There's no desire to uncover your secret fear of losing your inde­pendence through poverty. Promiscuity will make him argue against its pitfalls; frigidity will, bring on even lengthier discussions about isolation from human com­panionship. But he'll avoid learning about the traumatic experiences that brought on the former, or the deep-seated feelings of inadequacy that triggered the latter. Libra is the judge. You'll see lots of judges handing down fair decisions, based on weighing the facts in the case, but you won't find many of them asking you why the color red makes you nervous, or sympathizing with your com­pulsion to lock your husband out because he wore those red-striped pajamas. Always remember that the Libran argues with only an abstract curiosity. He appears to be a prober, but he's not. Nor is he as nosy and gossipy as he seems to be. It's like breaking the seal of the confessional to pry a secret given in confidence from the typical Libran.

All this makes him terribly trustworthy, but a little hard on your feelings. You can confide in him with faith. But you'll suffer when he misses sensing your innermost needs. He wants to please you, but there's seldom enough under-standing of your silent hopes to satisfy all your longings (unless there's a water sign on the ascendant, or the Moon is in a water sign). Just because he's an expert lover technically doesn't make him the soul of empathy in relation to your moods. He has enough trouble coping with his own. Nothing can be more irritating than when you rush to him with a story about how someone has hurt you deeply. You seek sympathy, and what do you get? His first question will be, "What did you do to him (or her)?" Then he'll point out where you were just as much in the wrong, until you could scream with unsatisfied indignation. Go ahead and scream, he still won't take sides if he thinks you've been unfair, and the emotional implications will escape him.

Trouble invariably arises from this Libran lack of aware­ness of the partner's need to be understood in depth. It may seem unbelievable that he can be so intuitive about the abstract, so brilliantly logical in deduction, so capable of clear, open-minded and open-eyed deliberation, and still be so aggravatingly obtuse about what makes you ache or thrill inside. But it's one of those inconsistencies you have to live with, if you live with a Libran. His gentleness and that smile, of course, make it easier to bear.

Unless there are financial afflictions in his natal chart, he won't be tight with the budget. On the contrary, the typical Libran has a rather lavish hand with cash. He believes in spending it on objects or activities that bring beauty or happiness. Be prepared to be a good hostess, because his home will be a regular hospitality center at most any hour of the day or night (except during those times when he's resting and won't take kindly to being disturbed by doorbells, telephones or people). Don't drag him to crowded places where he's forced to feel the press of flesh and where the noise offends his sense of harmony. Crowds of strangers affect his inner equilibrium. All Librans have an instinctive distaste for physical contact with masses of humanity. His social life will be generously sprinkled with intelligent, sparkling people, but when the group expands to over a couple of dozen warm bodies, he'll Struggle for air. A Libra man can suddenly leave you alone in a crowded theater with no explanation. He doesn't hate you. He was just overcome with claustrophobia, a typical Ubran affliction.

The fastest road to the disinterest that leads to divorce Ffs a disorderly home. Keep the radio and TV sets toned down, and don't let the odor of cooking penetrate hia sensitive nostrils. If you must make onion soup and garlic bread, spray pine-scented deodorant around until the house smells like the great northern woods. A wife who serves a Libran husband bread right out of the wrapper, makes him use paper towels for napkins and leaves the milk bottle or cereal box out where he can see them is beaded for the life of a not-so-gay divorcee sooner than she may think. Hanging stockings across the shower rod is out. Forgetting to dust or make the beds can keep him in a constant state of emotional discord. Hell retreat from the disharmony with longer and longer naps and more and more nights out alone, and eventually, there will be no communication. He may be as sloppy as six pigs himself, but he'll expect you to pick up his socks and fold the papers be scatters on the floor. If the chartreuse draperies clash with a maroon rug, he can pout for years, and you'll never know why. Better keep the decor pastel. With the typical Libran kindness, he may not complain, but his secretary and her exquisite taste may look more attractive to him every day.

The Libra male hates confusion, and he really needs harmony to remain stable. His home must be a beautiful, quiet oasis from the jangling discord of the outside world, or those scales may remain permanently out of balance. Since he seldom probes motives, you'll have to be smart enough to guess why he's never home or why he sleeps all the time when he is. Remember that he's weak on intro­spection, so you must be the analyst. He'll never suspect his unhappiness stems from seeing you covered with cold cream and the youngsters covered with jelly. He may not realize he hates the orange shower curtain or that the lithograph of George Washington crossing the Delaware which hangs over the mantle goes against his artistic grain. He won't quite understand why he keeps forgetting to kiss you goodnight and good morning, but his logical mind will tell him something is off balance, and he'll suffer from it more than he lets on. Pick up the papers and toys, spruce, Up the house, dab on your best perfume, take the curlers out of your hair, turn down the television, buy some heavenly blue shower curtains and get a good Degas print to replace George over the mantle. Youll wake up some morning and find you're married to a completely new man With a .otally changed attitude.

The children will always benefit from his sense of fair­ness. He'll make sure the biggest youngsters don't take advantage of the baby, or the youngest doesn't break the oldest's bicycle spokes. Libran fathers will exercise dis­cipline with quiet authority, and they'll try to give a logical reason for punishment, which will seldom be administered in anger. Like you, the children will melt under his charm; and like you, they'll also chafe under his constant debating and challenging. Strangely, a Libra man usually doesn't look forward enthusiastically to the birth of children. But after they arrive, he weighs the advantage of their love against loneliness, plunges into fatherhood with a sincere desire to enjoy it, and normally ends up as a doting parent. However, he'll never allow parental affection to replace his romantic feelings for you. With typical Librans of both sexes, the mate comes first, offspring second. You needn't fear that his love for you will decrease as the family in­creases-assuming, of course, you got rid of those char­treuse draperies or the maroon rug, one or the other- and that the dirty dishes don't continually pile up in the sink.

One final word of astrological advice. If you're in love with a Libra man, and you're sure it's meant to be, go right ahead and propose whatever it is you want to propose, up to and including marriage. Hell be relieved that you took the initiative. But watch out for that perverse streak-which causes him to let you decide, and then when it doesn't work out, cheerfully point out that "You made the decision. I didn't." Make sure you know what you're doing, or you'll never hear the end of it. There's only one way to even the score with him. Say "Yes, I decided. If I had left it up to you, we'd still be standing under that lamppost in the rain saying 'I love you,' and we'd both have caught pneumonia." He'll argue with you, naturally, but just before or after you bounce the teapot off his head, he'll accidentally smile, and there you'll be-stand­ing under that lamppost in the rain again, saying "I love you," once more. I believe this is where I came in.