How do you win someone over by their sign?

By aiming at another planet. The solar sign describes identity, not taste — the one that describes taste is Venus. It is the correction that turns a courtship guide from a joke into a reading, and it costs one line of the chart.

The size of the mistake can be measured. Venus is in the same sign as the Sun in 23.7% of people — I counted across the 21,915 days between 1966 and 2025, with the same ephemeris this site uses to build charts. In the other 76.3%, whoever follows the solar-sign courtship guide has excellent aim at the wrong target.

It is not a small difference in practice. An Aries person with Venus in Taurus does not want to be won over in a hurry: she is quick at everything and slow in taste. A Capricorn person with Venus in Sagittarius does not want an expensive, discreet dinner — she wants to leave the script. The solar sign describes how the person recognises herself; Venus describes what pleases her, and the two diverge in three out of every four charts.

Which planet governs attraction?

Two, and they do different things: Venus is what attracts, Mars is how one goes after it. Confusing the two is the second cause of a bad guide.

Notice the third row. The Moon is the piece that most decides whether a relationship carries on, and it is the one no courtship guide mentions — because it does not describe the flirting stage, but the living-together one. Whoever wants to win someone over looks at Venus; whoever wants to stay looks at the Moon.

And there is the asymmetry almost nobody notices: your own Venus is in the game too. It says what you offer and what you look for, and two people can like each other for reasons that never meet — one wanting intensity, the other wanting peace, and both calling it love.

Do the courtship guides by sign work?

They work a little, and for a geometric reason — not a magical one and not by chance. Venus is an inner planet: seen from Earth, she never strays far from the Sun.

Measured on the same series from 1966 to 2025: the maximum separation of Venus from the Sun is 47.2 degrees. Since each sign is 30 degrees, that ties Venus to a narrow band:

In other words: if someone is a Taurus, that person's Venus is in Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini or Cancer — and nowhere else. The solar sign does carry a little information about taste, and that is why the guide gets it right now and then.

But five neighbouring signs span earth, fire, air and water. The chain exists and is too short to hold, and too loose to point. It is exactly the profile of a rule that works enough to spread and little enough to disappoint.

How do you find out someone's Venus?

The birth date is enough. Venus changes sign every three or four weeks and depends on neither the hour nor the city — unlike the Ascendant, which demands both. She is the easiest piece to come by and the most useful in this subject.

If the date is the only thing you have, generate the chart with it and look at the Venus line. If you do not even have the date, the honest clue is the band of five signs — and the practical conclusion is to ask instead of deducing, which is faster and works better.

One caveat, for honesty: there are two or three days a month when Venus is changing sign, and on those days the answer depends on the hour. If the reading seems not to fit at all, it is worth checking whether the person was born on a changeover — it is the same care taken in I was born on the cusp, and for the same reason.

What Venus in each sign looks for

Venus describes what pleases and what makes someone stay — and she asks for quite different things. The list below is about Venus, not about the solar sign; it is the same format as the courtship guides, corrected at the target.

And the warning the table cannot give on its own holds: this describes preference, not a password. Nobody stays with someone because the approach was right — they stay because they wanted to. The table helps you not to get it wrong for want of information, and does not replace the person.

And it is a list of twelve, which means it describes one twelfth of the subject. The house the person's Venus landed in changes as much as the sign: Venus in Taurus in house 5 and Venus in Taurus in house 12 want the same thing and look for it in opposite places.

And Mars — how does each person go after it?

If Venus is what attracts, Mars is what makes someone act — and the two hardly ever land in the same sign. That is why so many people describe wanting one thing and doing another: they are two pieces, with two signs, and they do not consult each other.

Mars changes sign every six weeks, also without depending on the hour. And it is not chained to the Sun the way Venus is: Mars is an outer planet, and can turn up in any of the twelve signs just as easily, including on the opposite side from the Sun. That is why it is the least predictable piece of this subject — and the one that best explains what did not add up.

Four ways of going after it, and none is better than another:

• Mars in a fire sign — Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. Goes straight in, says what it wants and cannot stand ambiguity. Disappears quickly when it gets no answer.
• Mars in an earth sign — Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn. Acts by gesture and by constancy: turns up, sorts it out, comes back. Says little about what it feels and shows by doing.
• Mars in an air sign — Gemini, Libra, Aquarius. Approaches through conversation and shared interest. Needs to find the person interesting before anything else.
• Mars in a water sign — Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces. Acts sideways, tests the ground, advances when it feels safe. It tends to be read as disinterest, and hardly ever is.

The pairing that confuses most is fire Venus with water Mars: the person likes direct people and herself approaches by circling. Whoever expects reciprocity in the same style gives up too early — and the mismatch was not a lack of interest, it was a difference of mechanics.

What astrology does not do for you here

It hands nobody over, and there is no tactic that works against another person's will. This is the part where an honest text parts company with the others, and it is worth spelling out.

• Consent is not an obstacle to get around. A guide that teaches you to “break someone's resistance” is teaching you to insist, and insisting is not winning someone over. A no is still a no in all twelve signs.
• Reading someone's chart is not knowing the person. It is a shortcut to better questions, not a substitute for spending time together.
• Astrology does not predict who will like you. It describes affinity, and affinity is raw material — not a result.
• And the tactic that works on all twelve is the same one. Asking and listening, which is the opposite of what a guide sells: you already have the person in front of you and can simply get to know her.

The good use of this astrology is afterwards, not before. It is terrible for deciding and good for understanding — the other person's Venus explains why the gesture you thought beautiful did not land, and that is a conversation worth more than any approach.

When the question stops being “how do I win her over” and becomes “how do the two of us work”, the technique changes name: it is called synastry, and it crosses both whole charts instead of one sign.

Frequently asked questions about winning someone over by sign