the spiral path 2

unwinding the threads, doppelgängers, animus in the flesh

As soon as I began writing this part of the story, I hit a huge block. It’s hard to keep it simple now. All of the threads are tangled. It feels like a labyrinth, unraveling them. Everything is connected to everything. What starts as a kooky dating experience becomes my life’s story.

After my ex left me for his life coach (I have grown to love saying that sentence), I found myself in concurring relationships with three men, of the same name. Benjamin. Ben.

When I told my friend, she laughed out loud and said “It’s almost like it doesn’t even matter what their name is. They are replaceable. This is about you.”

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There was Married Ben. We had the same birthday, November 9th. He and I were both Scorpios and Sagittarius risings. He was like a hotter, older, dad-version of my ex. He had a daughter with the same name as the life coach.

There was Blonde Ben. A beautiful, tall, green-eyed, golden Adonis. He was rather androgynous, a Gemini, mercurial, and possibly the most dangerous of them all.

And then there was New Ben. A sweet, wide-eyed, depressed artist. He and I were both a bit lost when our paths collided, literally, and figuratively. He was an Aries, also with a Sagittarius rising, like me.

I name the astrology of the Ben’s because during the time that I was engaged with them, Mars was retrograde in Gemini for an unprecedented 7 months.

My Mars is in Gemini, in the 7th house. Scorpios and Aries are ruled by Mars.

For those who have no idea what any of this means - it’s basically like I entered a funhouse of mirrors where parts of myself - my own inner masculine and feminine - were reflected back to me through these relationships.

I could see where I was still acting like a little girl.

Where I was manipulative and seductive with my sexual energy.

Where I was stuck in a pattern of saving, trying to rescue or heal my lover.

Where I had no idea how to express boundaries.

How much of a freeze response my body had been in my whole life.

My daddy issues. My mommy issues. My power issues.

The season of the Ben’s was like entering a new layer of consciousness, where all of the toxic patterns I experienced in my past relationship flashed before my eyes in rapid succession, Ben, after Ben, after, Ben, so I couldn’t NOT see them.

The spiral path became quite literal here. The repetition. The deepening. The unwinding. It is wild, spinning, dizzying. It’s hilarious. Sickening.

Like a twister in the distance, coming for my home, and the black and white life as I knew it.

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Though my ex emotionally cheated first, I technically was on dating apps first.

We were at a point in our relationship where we weren’t sure if we were going to open it up, in the non-monogamous way, start seeing other people, while continuing to go to therapy, or what was happening at all between us, really.

He said he was committed to working on it. But all I felt was him pulling away.

I knew about his feelings for his coach, and understood them, having also fallen in love with every teacher I’ve ever had. It’s a power thing, it’s an authority thing, its a mommy/daddy thing.

But it seemed like he actually had an authentic desire to eventually explore connections with other women. I understood this. I actually anticipated it, we had been together since we were 25. And though it really hurt the way that I found out about everything with the coach, and my trust was broken, I was open to changing the form of our relationship.

I couldn’t imagine life without him. I really thought he would be in my life forever, no matter what.

And the truth was, I had an authentic desire to explore connections with other men, too, that I hadn’t been fully honest with myself about.

So in the trauma of it all, I told him I was going to go on Tinder. That I wanted to “make friends” and explore connections with other people. Find new forms of platonic intimacy. Which was true. But was not what was going to happen on Tinder.

It was kind of the the only way I knew how to socialize - get into a relationship. I had been a serial monogamist since I was 17. There were a couple years in my mid-twenties, before I met my ex, that I was single. But I was always dating.

So I spent a few hours getting high off the dopamine rush of being matched with strange, hot men on the internet. It was actually medicinal, during a time where my main form of human-sourced dopamine was elsewhere - jerking off to his life coach’s gym selfies in the shower or something.

Out of all the men I matched with on Tinder and exchanged messages with, the two that just happened to follow through were both named Ben.

It became a punchline of my life. I told everyone about Blonde Ben and Married Ben (it didn’t feel right to call them #1 or #2).

It was something funnier, lighter, more exciting to share about. Something other than the way the heartbreak was keeping me up at night, shaking, sweating, crying, panicking.

I went to the hospital twice during this time. Once with an anxiety attack. And another time because I got a fever and thought I had Lyme’s disease. I think it was just heartbreak.

I didn’t know who to write on my emergency contact line anymore.

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Though my ex fell in love with his life coach first, I technically, physically, cheated first.

Married Ben and I messaged briefly, on Feeld. An app for threesomes, poly, open people, etc. Very Bay Area. Married Ben was, well, Married, and poly. He and his partner had been together for something like 13 years and always been open in some way or another. They had a three y/o daughter together.

I had never been non-monogamous before and it seemed like an interesting thing to get to know someone who was. A way to receive and give some affection, touch, dopamine, resourcing. To share energy. And at the same time, practice non-attachment.

He tells me he’s going through something similar with his wife. She cheated on him. I don’t understand how that happens when you’re poly.

We message back and forth briefly, and decide to meet up for a walk.

It turns out that he lives 5 minutes away from me. We meet at a little coffee shop in our neighborhood, and I am struck by his beauty. He is tall, with long brown curly locks, and beautiful blue eyes. Like the Beast when he becomes human. He looks like a long lost older brother of my ex. He’s 6 years older than me. His shoulders, his frame, his stature, makes me feel a little weak.

Or maybe I was weak because I had taken LSD the night before with my ex, who obviously wasn’t my ex yet. We went to see our favorite band, Khruangbin, with some friends.

Our relationship was sustained by drugs, addictions. Psychedelics, especially. The day I met him at a music festival in 2016 was the first time I ever took acid. Whenever we were in a rough patch, taking some drugs together in the redwoods or seeing live music would bring us back together.

I wasn’t sure it worked this time. It obviously wasn’t enough to keep my from meeting up with another man the day after, which he knew about and gave me permission for. He didn’t know it was his doppelgänger.

Ben and I walk a small dirt trail in the Oakland hills. It feels a little awkward at first. But I quickly find out about our shared birthday. It feels like a sign. Something karmic between us. He feels familiar.

Then we open up about our relationships.

His wife cheated on him with their roommate. He wants to work on it for their daughter who he is very clearly crazy about. It seems really messy.

I tell him about my ex and the life coach. And somewhat suggest that we are opening our relationship, though that isn’t necessarily true. I’m a little surprised by this. I’m not sure where it comes from, in the moment.

Then he asks me if I practice tantra, and says he wants to find people to practice with.

I feel something stir at the base of my spine. A rattle of a snake tail.

It’s a story for another time, but I have been practicing women’s embodiment for the last five years, and I am realizing that I have unknowingly been pursuing tantra all along. Never explicitly with men, or with lovers. Only with sisters, in the temple.

We sit, facing each other, straddling a log, under the shade of some eucalyptus trees in a small canyon of the Oakland hills. The light shines through the leaves and lights up his ocean eyes; I have a hard time maintaining eye contact. I feel drawn towards him in the most magnetic way. In an ancient way. Like I’ve known him forever.

“I would like to explore tantra with you,” he says to me. I sense a tremble of nervousness in his voice, but the uprightness in his spine.

“I’d like that, too,” I say.

I almost can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. This is not within the agreements of my relationship with my ex. But it feels good. It feels true. I feel my heartbeat in the bowl of my hips.

He walks me back to my car, and asks if he can kiss me.

I say yes before I even think about it.

And I lean in so fast our teeth knock against each other.