JREF Swift Blog

Your Skeptic Stories

[Editor’s Note: In just a few weeks, many will be gathering at what is arguably the largest skeptical and critical thinking convention in the world: The Amazing Meeting! 9. As a precursor to this exciting event, we have collected a series of stories from readers like you; people who have, through one means or another, found their way in to skepticism. These stories remind us that we all started somewhere.

Our first story comes from Jan.]

I was 15. It was the early 80s. And in my circle of friends Linda Goodman's Sun Signs was all the rage. And I read the description of myself and, of course, desperately wanted to believe it.

At the time, I had an enormous schoolgirl crush on a university staffer. And he had an obvious thing for me, so the flirting was my reason for existence. Until the moment that I went and said that something I'd done was due to my being a [insert sunsign of choice here].His whole attitude changed from adoring to contempt in one second and he said words to the effect of being disappointed that a woman of my intellect would be hoodwinked by such nonsense.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It about killed me, it hurt.

And, of course, after that I couldn't win him back. But it did force me to question my judgment. It forced me to ask "are you sure you believe in this?" and that was my entry into skepticism.

He remained ever distant. I began to ask myself whether everything in writing should necessarily be trusted, no matter how popular. It has served me well, lifelong.

I hope to do the same for someone else, but sadly, I'm pretty sure no one is going to have a ridiculous crush on me!!

Jan is a happy, kind, accommodating skeptic atheist. Retired math and science textbook writer/editor. Long-term overthinker. Espionage history groupie. Mom to an elderly Burmese python, a geriatric border[line] collie, and way too many earthworms in the kitchen composter. http://thesnakesmommy.blogspot.com/