I was twenty-eight, freshly licensed, and still believing that love was something you earned.
That's important context for what I'm about to tell you. Because if I met this man today—if I sat across from him in my office, or on my porch, or anywhere—I would see him completely differently. I would see the chart behind the behavior. I would see the wound behind the bravado. I would see a Leo who was desperate to be seen, and a younger Maya who didn't know how to see him.
But back then? I just thought he was exhausting.
Let's call him Alex. Because that's close enough, and because I still don't like saying his real name out loud.
The audition
We met at a bar in Austin—one of those places with twinkle lights and live music and the kind of energy that makes you feel like anything could happen. He was at the bar, holding court, telling a story that had a group of strangers laughing. I was at the other end, nursing a margarita, trying to read a book in a bar because I was that kind of person in my twenties.
He walked over and said: "You look like you're the smartest person in this room. I need to know if that's true."
And I was hooked. Not because of the compliment—I was too cynical for that. But because he'd noticed me. He'd seen that I was reading in a bar, that I was a little out of place, that I was hiding in plain sight. And he'd walked right into my hiding spot.
That's the Leo superpower, isn't it? They don't just enter a room. They notice the people in it. And when they decide to notice you, it feels like being lit up.
The testing
Here's what I didn't understand at the time: Alex's attention wasn't a gift. It was a test.
If I laughed at his stories, he'd tell a bigger one. If I praised his work, he'd need to do more. If I told him I loved him, he'd need to hear it differently, bigger, louder, more publicly. It was like I was constantly trying to reach a moving target, and the target was his ego.
I didn't know about Leo's Achilles heel back then: they need to be seen, but they're terrified of being ordinary. They need admiration, but they've been hurt before by people who saw their brightness and tried to dim it. So they test. They push. They ask for more, to see if you'll stay.
And I did stay. For eighteen months. I stayed through the public arguments, the silent treatments, the passive-aggressive jabs. I stayed because when it was good, it was incandescent. And when it was bad, I told myself I hadn't tried hard enough.
The crash
We broke up twice. The first time, he showed up at my apartment with flowers and a speech. The second time, he didn't.
It was a Tuesday—I remember because I'd just started a new job—and I got a text. Just a text. A Leo who'd once made me feel like the center of the universe telling me it wasn't working, that he needed space, that he was "sorry I didn't see it coming." No phone call. No face-to-face. No acknowledgment of the eighteen months I'd given him.
And here's the truth I'm ashamed to admit: I spent six weeks believing it was my fault. I thought I hadn't been enough. I thought if I'd just been more interesting, more exciting, more something, he would have chosen to stay. I didn't sleep. I couldn't focus. I replayed every conversation, looking for the moment I'd failed.
That's what a Leo who hasn't done their work does to you: they make you believe the spotlight was a gift, when it was actually a demand.
The chart I wish I'd known
Years later, I pulled Alex's birth chart. Out of curiosity. Out of closure. I don't know exactly what I was hoping to find, but I found something I hadn't expected: I found a man who was terrified.
Alex was a Leo sun—I knew that—but his moon was in Scorpio. Deep, intense, secretive. He was a Leo who needed to be adored, but a Scorpio moon who couldn't trust the adoration. He was a walking contradiction: desperate to be seen, terrified of being truly known. He wanted admiration, but he was convinced that if you saw the real him—the complicated, uncertain, sometimes angry him—you'd leave.
So he tested. He pushed. He set impossible standards and watched me try to reach them, and when I couldn't, he had proof: See? No one really stays. No one really sees me.
His Venus was in Virgo—critical, exacting, hard to please. He didn't know how to receive love, only how to evaluate it. And his Mercury was in Cancer—meaning he felt everything deeply, but had a hard time articulating any of it. So he acted out instead.
I'm not saying this to excuse him. I'm saying it to understand him. And that understanding, honestly, is what freed me.
What I'd say to him now
If I ran into Alex today—at Barton Springs, at a concert, anywhere—I wouldn't avoid him. I might even say hello. And if the conversation went past pleasantries, here's what I'd tell him:
"I was angry at you for a long time. I thought you had broken me. I thought I had loved you wrong. But I see it differently now.
You weren't testing me. You were testing yourself—whether anyone could ever love the part of you that you couldn't love. And I couldn't love it enough to fill that hole. No one can. That's your work to do.
I forgive you. And I hope you forgive yourself."
That's the Leo ex I'd write about now. Not as a villain. Not as a lesson. As a human being who was trying to be seen, and whose visibility came at a cost to both of us.
What Leo taught me
Eighteen months with a Leo man taught me something I didn't learn in eight years of counseling: no one can love you enough to make you love yourself.
I spent so much of that relationship trying to prove myself. Trying to be bright enough, interesting enough, enough enough. I was showing up to his audition, again and again, thinking that if I just performed well enough, I'd get a permanent role. But Leos don't keep anyone permanently, not when they're still scared of being seen. They rotate the cast. They keep looking for the audience that will finally fill the silence.
I'm not that person anymore.
Now, when someone needs me to perform to prove my worth, I step back. Not out of cruelty. Out of clarity: I'm not your audience. I'm your partner. And those are different things.
The Leo you might be dating (and what to do)
If you're reading this and you recognize Alex—if you're with a Leo who's charismatic and demanding, who makes you feel special but never quite secure—I want to offer this:
Notice the difference between being adored and being seen. Leos are incredible at adoration. They know how to make you feel like the most interesting person in the room. But adoration is not the same as seeing you—and if you're always performing, you'll never feel fully known.
Ask for reciprocity. Leos can be generous, but they can also be unconscious takers. If you're doing all the emotional labor, you have to name it. A good Leo will hear you. An unhealed one will make it about them.
Know when the audition is over. If you're still trying to prove yourself a year in, if you're still waiting for the "real" relationship to begin—that's not a Leo issue. That's a relationship issue. You are allowed to say, "I have shown up fully. Now I need you to."
The part I still carry
I don't think about Alex often. But when I do, it's not with regret. It's with a kind of quiet gratitude. He taught me something I wouldn't have learned any other way: you cannot love someone into loving themselves.
You can witness. You can support. You can hold space. But you cannot heal the part of them that doesn't believe they're worthy of being healed. That work is theirs.
My Pisces Venus wanted to save him. My Cancer moon felt his pain. My Taurus sun—stubborn, loyal—wanted to stay. But my Aries Mercury? She was the only one telling the truth: "This is not yours to fix."
I wish I'd listened to her sooner.
The view from here
I'm sitting in my pottery shed as I write this. There's clay on my hands and Cosmo is asleep at my feet and Ethan is probably making dinner. My life is quiet and safe and not at all incandescent. It's better.
The Leo ex taught me that love doesn't have to be a performance. It can be a presence. It can be showing up, day after day, not because you're auditioning for a role, but because you've already got it. You're not trying to prove anything. You're just there.
That's what I'd say to him now—and what I'd say to you:
You don't have to perform for love. You don't have to prove your worth. You are already worth loving. The only question is whether the person you're with can see it—not as a compliment, but as a fact.
If they can't? Let them go. They're not ready to love you. They're still trying to love themselves.
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