Secrets and Guys

DAY: 42
LOCATION: Koh Phangan

Sure enough, I felt weird as hell the next morning on my ritual stroll. Did I really get naked in front of those people last night? Did I really imagine a whole future with a 27-year-old Ascending Tantric boy? Was that man in the igloo really touching himself in a way that made me exit the igloo immediately? I needed to ground myself in reality.

By going out with the Israeli. Avi grabbed me from Benjamin’s Hut around noon and whisked me up north. Along the way we stopped for some fresh fruit. The vendor cut up the papaya in front of us, and Avi gave him some extra baht for his troubles. I liked watching him interact with the locals – he was warm-hearted and generous.

It took a little searching, but we eventually found the secret beach. As promised, the water was a magnificent teal, the sand soft and inviting.

“I saw George Clooney here one year,” Avi said.

“You did??” I looked at him excitedly, as if Amal didn’t exist.

“Yup. See those boats out there? There’s another even more secret beach that can only be accessed by them. He may have been staying there.”

What was it about secrecy that made me so curious? Secret beaches, secret societies, secret igloos – I wanted in. But when you play with fire…

We found a spot to sit and Avi set up his Beats Pill, transforming the beach into our own private day club. He handed me the papaya, and we probed each other’s lives. He owned a small real estate firm in Manhattan, and somehow managed to maintain a pretty solid work life balance.

“But how am I going to compete with these massive multi-millionaires?” He looked out over the water, seriously calculating how he could win me over. I had told him about David, the producer.

“I’m working for the guy, not dating him! I don’t need some ultra-wealthy husband, I just want to be able to travel and go to the dentist,” I laughed. How had I managed to come across like I needed riches? “Seriously, I care way more about how open-minded someone is. I’d rather have someone to discuss conspiracies and consciousness levels with.”

Fortunately, he was game for both. He believed in aliens and channels and other dimensions, while somehow staying grounded at his Union Square office. As we floated out in the water, pondering how our guides led us to this honeymoon moment, he kissed me as if we’d been dating for years. Not boring, just natural.

It wasn’t Levi, but it was nice, and I let myself go with it. Why not? I’m in paradise! We drank coconut shakes and ate noodles, talked and laughed, got silly and serious. It all felt so effortless, and while I had no visions of spending my life with him as we rode back on his motorbike, he was a much more realistic match then Ascending Tantric Boy.

Getting ready for my first Phangan yoga class at Orion, I wondered if I should message Fritz, like I’d told him I would. Most of the morning’s embarrassment had moved through me, but I still felt nervous about seeing him again. What am I doing with all these men?? I decided to wait until after yin.

The light was just starting to dim when I arrived at Orion Healing Centre. As the name suggests, this place offers more than just yoga. It’s a detox retreat on a tiny inlet, with hotel rooms and a vegan restaurant and people sleeping in hammocks. I paid for the class, then set up my mat in the mosquito-netted studio looking out on to the water.

The experience would’ve been a 10/10 on ambience alone, but unfortunately the teacher had a very quiet, thickly accented voice that many of us couldn’t make out. Twice people asked for her to speak louder, twice she tried and failed. This is what yoga is all about, I had to remind myself, not getting frustrated in the face of challenging poses and barely audible instructors.

I still walked out of the studio with that gooey yin feeling, the one that can put you straight to sleep. Or you know, relax me enough to text Fritz and welcome him to join me for dinner. He promptly accepted the invitation.

As I waited for him, I struck up a conversation with two women at the restaurant. They were both from Germany, pressing reset on their systems with a week at Orion. They’d loved everything about their experience, especially turning off their phones.

“Yeah, that’s one thing I used to love about traveling, unplugging,” I said. “But now Sprint offers free international 3G and I might as well be at home. I can’t remember the last time I truly went off grid for longer than 8 hours. Kind of horrifying, really. Another addiction I’ll have to break sometime!”

On cue, Fritz arrived, and I wished the women well on their journeys. We placed our order – raw sushi and a superfood shake for me, nothing for him. He wasn’t hungry. Already I felt uncomfortable – I didn’t love eating alone in front of someone.

We sat down and I did that Amy thing when I feel like I’ve over shared with a guy and like maybe all he wants from me is sex so my energy gets kinda hostile and my words sorta sharp and I push him away with my aura.

“Are you okay?” Fritz asked, perceiving my brittleness.

“Yeah, you just have to realize that last night wasn’t normal for me and I still feel a little weird,” I admitted.

“Why? It’s so natural and such a safe place,” he replied.

“Well I mean, that guy was basically masturbating!” I blurted out, defensive.

Fritz started laughing. Loud. “No he wasn’t! He was holding himself. Totally natural. He wasn’t erect.”

“Yeah, whatever, maybe I’m too much of a puritan,“ I said, fired up. "Intellectually I agree with you, I read Sex at Dawn, but trust me when I say as an American that experience was outside of my comfort zone!”

“Okay, okay, I hear you,” he softened. “Nobody is pressuring you to do anything. I don’t want anything from you, I just think you’re beautiful and passionate and full of light, so I want to be around you.”

I softened too. I didn’t want to be stand-offish because Fritz was different from me, because our life experiences varied so much. “I’m sorry, I think you’re great too. And I want to know more about you.”

“Ask me anything,” he smiled.

“Okay,” I smiled back. “Where do you get your clothes?” As silly as it sounded, this was one of the things that seemed to signal spirituality, at least superficially, and I was genuinely curious.

The answer was all over. India, Spain, Belgium, Thailand – he’d built his all-natural cotton wardrobe gradually, picking up pieces that he liked here and there. Before his awakening around 2012, he’d been a club kid, raving with the best of them. In fact, he owned a company that built sets for electronic music festivals, and still DJ’d occasionally on the side.

“See, I’m really not as different from you as you think. I still have a foot in the ‘real world,’ and I’m also trying to figure out my place. Maybe I’ll end up working in the tantric community, maybe not, I don’t know. Just trying to listen to my heart.”

By the time he rode me back to my hotel, I felt connected with him again. It wasn’t last night’s vision by the fire, this romantic cosmic moment, but something more down to earth, sturdier. Graspable.

“See you again?” He asked as I hopped off.

“Yes,” I nodded. “Definitely.”