The Pisces man

The combination of being a man and a Pisces can be a slightly uneasy one, because of those collective stereotypes which still haunt us despite our progress. This man won't drag you by the hair into his cave (you may have to drag him, if you're in a hurry), or rush off to hunt woolly mammoths while you stand over the cooking pot. He's probably a better cook than you are, and rigid relationship roles don't interest him. Some Piscean men run in terror from their underwater visions into a brittle rationality which demands statistics, definitions and proofs. These are the dogmatic Piscean materialists who have no tolerance for what they call "irrationality" in others.

It's sad to see a Pisces man betray his soul in this way. Some Pisces men go to the other extreme. Then you have a man who wants a strong partner to support and take care of him while he's writing the eternally unfinished novel or contemplating the job he'll never actually apply for. He's the passive victim, abused and betrayed by a cold and brutal world, looking for sympathy and someone he can manipulate. But when you meet a Pisces man who has both self-respect and the courage to accept his vulnerability, then you have found a rare and wonderful creature. This is the anti-hero, the gentle fighter, the poet, the sensitive lover.

The Pisces man loves to feel "understood". This isn't a sign of strong physical passion as much as sybaritic sensuality. Allowing himself to strike up an interesting, sympathetic conversation, and then allowing himself to be seduced by good wine, soft music, satin sheets and erotic underwear is vastly preferable to heroic conquests. Pisces is as happy being a passive lover as he is being, literally or figuratively, the one on top - it all depends on how he feels in the moment. Often he will play the buffoon or the clown.

People love to protect him. He can protect himself perfectly well, but it isn't always in his interest to let you know that. Trust him and you'll bring the best out of him. See only his "unreliability" and he'll have trouble trusting himself. He doesn't usually trust himself anyway, since he understands the extremes of human nature better than anyone. Accuse him of something, and he'll go out and do it, just to please. His way of fighting is not to fight; it's to bend so far backward that you fall on your face.

Passive resistance is a technique dear to the Piscean heart. But don't think he can be easily dominated. His world doesn't include words like "dominant" and "submissive". He may play pliant because he can really empathise with your point of view, or it just isn't that important to him to draw blood. Try to dominate him and you'll discover you're empty-handed. He's simply drifted away, without a fuss.

If you like having all your decisions made for you, don't choose a Pisces. If you want someone whom you can bully, don't choose a Pisces for that role either. Now you see him, now you don't. No promise means anything to him if the fundamental values of the relationship have been abused. And just what are those values? Well, for one thing, they're about a genuine, even if intermittent, touching of souls, of vision, of something so subtle and intangible that even the word "love" isn't a very good description.

He can see through power-games pretty quickly. For a while, he'll probably empathise because he understands better than you why your own insecurity makes you play them. But go on for too long and he just won't be there the next morning. No note, no phone call. Just gone, like the fish vanishing in the depths.

If you want a relationship where you can get a glimpse of what mystics throughout the centuries have called "union with the One", then choose a Pisces. Even if he isn't overtly mystical and never thinks about such things, he has the power to open up mysterious depths in you. Being so strongly empathetic, he can thaw even the most frozen heart, just by being there and saying nothing. With his profound intuitive understanding of human nature, you're never likely to be taken for granted or treated like an object. You get to be a fellow complex suffering and dreaming and aspiring human. And that's worth a lot.