What We Love and Hate About Dating Pisces

For those who believe in it, astrology can be a powerful tool for introspection and self-knowledge — or you can use it to talk shit about your ex and obsess over your crush. Journey with us as we do both, and then head to the comments to live your truth.


KaeLyn Rich, Writer

I love a Pisces’ dreamy, creative mind. My ex was very into music. It was like his whole life had a dedicated soundtrack. He was an early adopter of the mp3 player, a heavy and clunky Creative Nomad Jukebox which boasted storing 100 hours of music! (WOWSA!) My ex brought out my dreamier side and we had lots of fantasies about what we’d do and accomplish in our lives together. We partied hard and loved hard. We planned an amazing once-in-a-lifetime backpacking trip around Europe that we bought everything except plane tickets for and then…didn’t take. The biggest challenge of a Pisces is their fragility around emotional vulnerabilities which does not pair well with my just-deal-with-it Capricorn self. In our worst moments, my ex was withdrawn and selfish when he felt hurt and turned to booze or other forms or escapism instead of telling me how he really felt. There was a big trust break that we never fully recovered from. (I cheated, which set the stage for him to cheat and then me and then him again before we finally broke up.) I feel like I can mostly get over a purely physical transgression and even encouraged us to try an open relationship, but I don’t think my ex ever got over it or forgave me. Pisces have a tendency to leave things unsaid and let them fester and that’s the hardest thing about staying together with a Pisces if you can’t get them to open up.


Vanessa Friedman, Community Editor

PISCES WHOLE SHTICK IS THEY THINK THEY’RE THE ONLY EMPATHETIC PEOPLE IN THE WORLD AND THEY’RE ALWAYS LIKE “OHHHHH I CAN READ A ROOM” BUT THEY’RE LIKE TOTALLY FUCKING CLUELESS AND OBTUSE ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE CAN ALL READ THEIR EMOTIONS TOO BECAUSE IT’S ALL OVER THEIR FACE AT ALL TIMES AND WHEN THEY’RE BEING SHITTY OR EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATIVE WE CAN ALL TELL, THEY’RE NOT SPECIAL, JESUS.

I wasn’t going to write all that but then I decided that maybe the best way to follow my astrologer’s plea that I never date a Pisces again as long as I live is to actively roast them on the internet. That said, I am historically extremely attracted to Pisces and I have a lot of Piscean friends who I love very dearly. Also, if you’re a hot Pisces and you want to emotionally destroy me, tbh I’m probably down.


Stef Schwartz, Vapid Fluff Editor

I’ve never significantly dated a Pisces, but I do like having them as friends. I’m honestly not sure what that would even look like? Lots of feelings and discussions about feelings, probably. I don’t know! Pisces, get at me.


Ryan Yates, Writer

Pisces are special because they have so many feelings. But they also often can’t differentiate feelings from facts, or theirs from yours. They are not great at rationale, they are not great at direct communication, and in my experience they are not great at boundaries — respecting partners’ or having their own. The best Pisces I know are true empaths and sparks of light who I would trust with my deepest traumas, and the worst Pisces I know are chronic gaslighting sad bois. Every Pisces reading this thinks they’re the first which is why so many of them are the second.


Positive: baby™

Negative: baby™


Rachel Kincaid, Former Managing Editor

Pisces do remind me of babies — I know Aries are chronologically the babies of the zodiac and they ALSO seem like babies but Pisces have that quality like an infant where you’ll notice them staring at you with giant, wide, very wise eyes from the other end of the bus and you’re not sure whether they are having a deep connection with your soul through a shared wavelength or whether they’re like, zoning out because they’re thinking about pureed carrots. Or both! Their whole deal is very pure and charming and also like, sometimes sort of hard to know what to do with because like, oh ok, we’re crying again! That’s good, I guess, let it out? Should I call a cab so we can go, or…?


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24 Comments

  1. You know an article is going to be a real piece of work when it opens with “my ex was so oversensitive about me cheating on him, must be because he’s a birth sign I’m annoyed at.” At first I hated these “Let’s Brutally Slam An Entire Group As Dating Partners” articles, but they’re so completely deranged that reading them is actually becoming a guilty pleasure for me.

  2. this is p. gross. like all of these really dismiss the realities of abuse and tie them to arbitrary birth signs? like if your ex is manipulative and always gaslighting you they are an abuser not a “shitty Pisces”. or alternatively, your ex wasn’t doing those abusive things and was instead just bad at communication, or together you were bad at communication. say what you really mean, but consider that a fluff article isn’t one to throw around abuse allegations at millions of people who were born when they were born by chance just like you were?

    • Yeah, exactly all of this, you nailed it. It’s really screwed up and uncomfortable. And like… honestly, is Autostraddle really the correct place to invent Star Racism? Do we not have *enough* reasons to treat other people in our communities like garbage?

      • Star Racism? It’s a bit much to compare the flawed worldview of people who take astrology too seriously to a structure of oppression that has led to many millions of deaths etc.

        People are welcome to project their own personal baggage onto astrological signs; that tells us more about them than those signs. This series is basically intel on who not to date (ie. most of the contributors and likeminded folks). There are lots of people out there who don’t care at all about astrological signs, who are equally weirded out when someone tries to blame their problems with their ex on astrology. Essentialist astrological nonsense is a just helpful red flag parade, letting you know who probably isn’t your type. Pisces doesn’t have to feel oppressed by it.

        • Where do you think institutionalized prejudice starts? Do you think it just grows out of nowhere, or that it was lurking in the dark already formed for thousands of years, just waiting to be picked up by foolish people, like the One Ring? Creating precedent for prejudice is universally an action that risks the formation of more serious prejudices, and something doesn’t have to be The Most Institutionally Supported Prejudice to be seriously harmful anyway. I promise I am in a position to say that any kind of stupid-ass prejudice can hurt people, and I don’t appreciate living in a country where people who look like me are having their kids put in concentration camps and then having someone on the internet tell me what I can or can’t compare to racism. Just because something didn’t particularly hurt YOU doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal.

  3. Hello, as a pisces and non astrology observer, what I can confirm is:

    1. Everyone always seems to forgets that pisces exists

    2. I just got bitten in the shin by a black cat. Ow.

    • Rofl you’re Pisces, Sally? This is the best ad for not believing sunsign astrology ever.

      Although was point 2 trying to demonstrate that you do in fact have mushy mushy pisces feelings?

  4. I admit to the occasional fester fest and pretty much have no poker face, but I’ve never tried to manipulate someone into questioning their own sanity. That’s an extremely harsh accusation to hurl at millions of people.

  5. I bet not one person who’s met me would guess Pisces as my star sign. I can never relate to any of the Pisces traits laid out in profiles of the sign, which, considering astrology deals in Barnum statements, is quite something.

    I’d be annoyed by the idea of people writing me off based solely on a sign that doesn’t even fit me, but I don’t want to date anyone who makes life decisions based on astrology anyway, so I guess they’re doing me a favor.

    • Hello all. I’m a pisces and all of you are correct in one form or another, but know this we Pisces are the last of the Zodiac which makes us special because we have all the traits of every other Zodiac sign, and that’s what makes us unique.

  6. Longtime reader who has never commented before, but I just wanted to echo the other folks in the comments here who said how uncomfortable, painful and dismissive this article was. As a rule I’m in the “astrology isn’t for me but its harmless and I don’t have an issue with anyone else who finds it relevant to their life” camp, but using it to simultaneously infantilize and paint as inherently abusive a nearly endless array of people isn’t harmless and is an incredibly poorly considered editorial choice. The ultimate irony is that y’all are continuously characterizing Pisces as inherently manipulative gaslighters while simultaneously saying that they are overly emotional and can’t actually differentiate what is true and what isn’t…ie exactly how textbook gaslighting works.

    The fact that multiple editors at Autostraddle worked on this piece and it didn’t occur to any of you that this article was unfair and that people would find it painful and offensive reflects incredibly poorly on Autostraddle as whole and ironically enough, shows the same critical lack of self-awareness that you accuse Pisces of. From the position’s y’all have stated in this article, it might easy for y’all to dismiss the people who were hurt by it as just being “Pisces babies,” but consider how shitty being told that would make you feel in any other context. Y’all aren’t just using astrology as a tool for “self-knowledge” or using this article to “talk shit about your exes,” you are insulting and dismissing millions of people you’ve never met.

  7. Idk, as a definite BabyTM pisces currently untangling myself from a gaslighty sad boi pisces and finding that the whole affair mostly took place through unconsciously reading each others’feelings and intense eye contact, this feels pretty legit. Y’all can drag me and my double pisces drama any time.

  8. The best description of Pisces that I’ve ever heard was, “So independent that they have to cut off their own nose to prove that they don’t need anyone else.”

  9. As a Pisces, I have to admit…all of the angsty responses article are (dare I say it?) very quintessentially Pisces responses.

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