Yoga Means Union, Sex Doesn't

He kept telling misplaced stories about how he’s really enjoying his freedom since the last 3 “intense” months. These stories nudged their way uncomfortably from his mouth the way sober people make their way through excited crowds in a packed nightclub. He suffered a break-up about 3 months ago. This information came to light a few days ago when I was at his house, the same day I met his cats. Evidently it’s been a very intense time for him. This part he repeats.

My immediate silent reaction to the odd after-yoga class conversation was, "Is he trying to break up with me???" I feel the need to confirm that the last sentence was a joke. We weren’t together. We had lunch together once. We went to his house together Thursday night. We ate pasta together, we listened to the album he’s been recording together, we drank a little wine together and we had sex together. First time in months I surrendered to a romp. I've been harnessing my chi, if you will. Still, none of this created sufficient union to engage in break-up talk. But there he stood, in all of his fumbling human-ness. He couldn’t muster gumption enough to say what was racing through his head,

"Thank you for the sex. That's all it was."

Instead he stammered through oddly-timed stories about how he let this person or that person down because they expected things from him that he wouldn't deliver. Sitting on the listening end of a conversation like this was a valuable lesson. I aim to never again pretend to speak objectively when I have clearly subjective intentions.

He asked if I was parked in the garage and offered to walk me to my car.
(It’s odd; just now I was overcome with sadness and a little regret.)

I do believe things work out exactly the way they’re suppose to, for reasons much more practical than God or fate. The fact is that we have no choice but to move from the point where we are because we can’t change what is. When you’re willing, though, “what is” can open your eyes to what is – best. Had I gone to his house tonight, we would have had sex and maybe never had a conversation as simple and good as the one we had sitting in my car in the parking garage. The irony is that I wanted to go to his house. I wanted to have sex with him. The initial fever had obviously started to blind me. After all, he has 2 cats and eats meat. I remember naming this a deal breaker during our first-ever conversation. (Not the cats- if I'd known about them even his yoga classes would've been deleted from my circuit.) But what Krishna loving yogi eats meat? Many, I’m sure.

Completely aside from being a carnivore, he is very attached to being a “rebel”. Quotes are added to amuse me and emphasize words he uses on the regular. He made me laugh at myself in the car for gesturing quotations around a word I spoke. We have a lot in common – me and the dread locked, yoga teaching, mere gurudev (my favorite chant) serenading, pasta cooking, krishna das imitating, thai-yoga-massaging-my-ass, won’t take no for an answer in re: sex… seductor. Most things we have in common, though, disolve unions - which we clearly were not having. And if we had been, its course would have come to a screeching halt in the parking garage.

I definitely feel a bit seduced, which makes me laugh since I carried the endearing nickname "man-eater" amongst close friends back east. But he crept in through my sacred world. I broke my rules. I ignored the signs: how he slipped “no strings attached” into post-pasta/pre-massage talk, how he repetitiously pulled my pants down as I would pull them up and request a moment to gather my clarity, his comment about how nurturing and loving the sex was – as if he were more accustomed to pounding, his story about getting off the phone with a close friend/girl who called to share something very personal because he wanted to answer his call-waiting, how he left his harmonium in the studio to walk to my car, his mentioning the yoga studio manager said to "kick their asses b/c there've been requests for that”... the resulting soul-less yoga class he taught. All of these things = I’m not interested.

We ended up having a great time in my car. He took off his jacket and stopped telling side-door "I love not having to be accountable to anyone other than me" stories after I told him numerous accounts that vividly illustrated my commitment tendencies. I choose the word tendencies over phobias. Once he shed a layer and I gave him a spiritual name – Jesus – we laughed lots of deep belly laughter and momentarily moved beyond Thursday's sensory-satisfying-spiritually-childish sex. An hour and a half passed before we both claimed tired and said goodnight.

I can't decidedly say if I would ever share a meal or a mattress with him again. I'm headed to India in the fall. Maybe there I'll experience my fantasy - communion of personal devotion and sacred sex with a tall, sinewy, olive-skinned, dreadlocked seeker who knows how to pop and lock. Or maybe I'll stroke a beautiful foreign ego and then leave him - evolution toward guiltlessness, through familiar territory.

Or maybe I'll sit still and cultivate, and keep bathtub thoughts in the bathtub.