Why doesn't this cypher query work?

[svincen]

My simple 4 node graph is:

(thing:Steve) -[is]-> (thing:Person) -[does]-> (action:living) <-[is]- (action:breathing)

but this query

MATCH (a:thing),(b:action)
OPTIONAL MATCH (a)-[r]-(b)
OPTIONAL MATCH (a)-[r1]-(a)
OPTIONAL MATCH (b)-[r2]-(b)
return *

returns

│"a" │"b" │"r" │"r1"│"r2"│
│{"name":"Steve"} │{"name":"living"} │null│null│null│
│{"name":"Steve"} │{"name":"breathing"}│null│null│null│
│{"name":"person"}│{"name":"living"} │{} │null│null│
│{"name":"person"}│{"name":"breathing"}│null│null│null│

Why doesn't the query return R1 (steve is person) nor R2 (breathing is living)?
(It only returns a->b... person is living)

[glilienfield]

This syntax is a little confusing in terms of what each node’s label is. 

(thing:Steve) -[is]-> (thing:Person) -[does]-> (action:living) <-[is]- (action:breathing)

anyways, it looks like your ‘thing’ node (“steve”) is more than one hop away from either ‘action’ node (“living” and “breathing”). You pattern matches are all one hop patterns, thus no matches returning relationships.