Questions about future hook-ups and romance circled around the makeshift waiting room in the Women’s Resource Center on Monday. Students were waiting for X96’s psychic, Margaret Ruth, to read their palms.
“It’s been mostly girls, but we’ve had some men,” said Lauren Davies, from Student Health Services’ Office of Health Promotion. “People are kind of curious.”
Chelsea Woodward, a freshman studying German, said curiosity is precisely what brought her to see Ruth.
“I hope she tells me that I am not destined to be alone,” she said. “That would be nice.”
Ruth said concerns such as Woodward’s are very common. “Relationships seem to be the most gnarly place.”
She added that most people feel like they are at the helm as far as their career or education goes, but when it comes to relationships they tend to feel the least in control.
“They feel like they’re more at the whim of other people,” she said. “But they’re wrong.”
The certified tarot master said such insecurities and many other relationship problems come not from a person’s partner, but from the person.
“All relationships are a mirror of self,” she said. “Realizing that it is all about you and parts of you being mirrored back lets us understand how to fix the problem. So that’s where the homework lies.”
For example, if a person constantly worries that his partner is cheating on him, the problem lies in his own issues about trust. Unless his partner is in fact seeing someone else, the partner’s actions are not part of the problem.
For someone who has been cheated on, cheating becomes a constant issue, Ruth said.
“It doesn’t define their world, but their issues,” she said.
She added that someone who hasn’t been cheated on will not have an issue with trust and probably won’t even think about whether a partner is straying.
“Being self-aware is the most important product of a relationship,” she said.
Derek Deviny said such themes of self-awareness popped up during his reading.
“She told me I need to find out who I am,” he said, adding such advice was a bit shocking because “I was just thinking about that yesterday.”
The business management student said he spent a lot of last summer trying to define himself.
“I know who I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be my dad-he’s an alcoholic,” Deviny said.
The junior said he hoped Ruth would tell him how to meet the girl of his dreams. “She told me that I’ve got to be selfish for myself so I don’t look to my future girlfriend for my desires,” he said.
Eric Steinmann, also a junior in business, said he didn’t believe anything Ruth told him.
“I think she misinterpreted a dog bite scar as an emotional block,” he said.
Ruth conceded, “Palm reading is terribly difficult and terribly individual. That’s why I don’t charge for them.”
Before his reading, sophomore Jeff Ortiz said he wasn’t sure if he believed in the psychic and her abilities.
“For all I know, she could tell me that I’m going to get hit by a bus tomorrow,” he said. But the film student added that he wanted to remain open-minded.
“I haven’t experienced anything first-hand that would lead me to believe otherwise, but sure, why not?”
After his reading, however Ortiz had a different opinion.
“It was pretty insightful. She hit some stuff pretty dead-on,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to reveal the details of his reading because “they were pretty personal.”
Still, Steinmann said he remains a skeptic.
“I think it’s all a bunch of hoo-haa, but I still believe in ghosts. So psychics are out,” he said.