Heated Rivalry, Pillion and the promise of queer joy
How the groundbreaking queer cinema and television being made right now are helping me understand my own journey in building healthy relationships
I wrote a more “spiritual” version of this text explaining casually the concept of “twin flames” and how it relates to the archetypes I saw in both Heated Rivalry and Pillion, so you can find that text here on my Substack.
It was the end of Fall 2023, and I had scheduled a massage session on a queer app in Berlin. More precisely a tantra massage. But, no, dear reader, for me it wasn’t about getting the infamous “happy ending” or any sexual innuendo. The massage therapist turned out to be the most caring and sweetest person I had ever met in that type of setting, and by the end of my time with him I would have unconsciously realised he’s the most important catalyst of growth and mind expansion I’ve experienced so far in this lifetime.
I’m writing this on the New Moon in Capricorn on January 18th, 2026, which happens to be my twin flame’s sun sign. He actually has in his natal chart what’s called a Capricorn stellium in Western astrology, i.e. when three or more planets are placed in the same sign. His heavily Capricorn energy could not be so vastly different from my chart’s Gemini expression (the stark contrast between Capricorn’s structure and tradition with Gemini’s fluidity and non-conformity). That’s maybe the first hook that pulled us together—after all, opposites do attract!
Back to that fated meeting in late Fall 2023, the circumstances of our first moment of acquaintance have always been something that generated controversy. During the massage itself, I had felt an intense electric pull between my hips and his; nothing sexual, nothing salacious, but more like two poles of a magnet being drawn to each other by an intense pull of attraction. I’d felt so dumbfounded by this bodily perception that I commented on this with him at the end of the session, which he confirmed also having felt on his side. So what was my reaction once the massage was over, and I was almost ready to leave? To kiss him.
My therapist at the time had told me upon hearing this story, that “I could potentially have gotten myself into a likely abusive situation”—given my past relationship history—as in her eyes “he was a massage therapist who ‘took advantage’ of my vulnerability in being his client”. I later recounted this story to my twin, and actually told him that in that scenario I was the one who could be accused of any inappropriate behaviour, because I had been the one to approach him romantically, maybe in an effort to validate the electricity felt between us during the session.
There’s a lot of theoretical talk online about the “twin flame” lore that I’m not going to go into here right now, but basically there’s always a clear polarity happening between the two counterparts: one “chaser” desperately trying to convince the other of their incredible connection, as he/she is the first to awaken to the depth of their cosmic link, and a “runner” who cannot for the love of God stay committed to any relationship with the former, because he/she is extremely scared of how the dynamic makes them feel the most vulnerable they’ve ever felt in their lives. Some people even call the “chaser” as divine feminine and the “runner” as divine masculine, which is why I made an effort in the previous phrase to not make these roles about gender or sexual orientation, given that a biological male can represent the qualities of a divine feminine and vice versa.
Some say that your divine counterpart is never separate from you, because as we know from pop versions of quantum physics, and from spiritual discourse, separation is an illusion of the ego mind, not related to the interconnectedness of all Creation itself, experienced through our Higher Selves. We are all one, and the Universe is a manifestation of ourselves. In this sense, the physical incarnation of your twin flame would be what the Universe needed you to experience so that you could come back into the so-called Union with yourself.
A few twin flame theorists such as Elizabeth Clare Prophet and spiritual healers such as Barbara Ann Brennan have laid out the framework to understand how the energetic bond between twin flames is unbreakable, and sometimes even independent from active contact in the physical plane. For after their initial meeting and activation, such as the one that happened between myself and my twin during the massage session, twin flames don’t need to be in a relationship or in constant contact in order to still feel the spiritual exchange through the unbreakable energetic chords that exist between them.
In my opinion, thus, what the internet and the insurmountable amount of videos on YouTube and TikTok get wrong about “twin flames” is that it’s not the greatest love story ever told, or just a fated romantic encounter between two people, even though romance is the trigger of the connection in the beginning. In my opinion, “twin flames” represent the groundwork spiritual initiation for the most rewarding, but also difficult and painful awakening a person can go through in a lifetime.
And that is precisely why this connection is not meant to last as a relationship, or at least meet the expectations of a happy-go-lucky mundane romance story. The romantic aspect of my relationship with my twin flame, for example, ended very badly. Or at least what is considered to be “bad” in human terms. I overstepped his boundaries, acted from a place of fear and self-abandonment, and therefore garnered his anger and disappointment. I have tried many times to justify my unhealthy actions towards him to try and find some spiritual reason for them, but they were just coming from a place of emotional scarcity and desperation.
Over the Christmas break I had learned about the breakout streaming hit of Winter 2025, the Canadian show Heated Rivalry. As I binge-watched the six episodes of its first season, it dawned on me that the queer joy and eroticism happening between the fictional closeted gay hockey players, Russian Ilya Rozanov and Canadian Shane Hollander—originally created in the source material written by Canadian author Rachel Reid—are everything I’ve been striving for in a romantic relationship (maybe minus the closeted part): emotional vulnerability, reciprocity, and commitment.
My twin flame couldn’t offer me any of that. He might be what is commonly defined in Attachment Theory as “avoidantly attached”—when someone has such a deep-seated dread of vulnerability and emotional intimacy stemming from their childhood and relational traumas, that they self-sabotage being in romantic relationships for fear of engulfment and of rejection. But by watching Ilya’s character development in Heated Rivalry, I actually healed a lot of unresolved expectations and fantasies I’d created in my mind about my twin flame “returning” to me. Since my divine counterpart comes from a post-Soviet country with culture adjacent to Russian influence, I could see in the fictional character of Ilya the potential that my twin could have for being in a romantic relationship with me—if he chose to heal and grow like Rozanov does in his character arc in the show—but for now I’m no longer striving to monitor if that is happening/will happen, or to try and “fix” or “save” him in codependent and enmeshed ways.
Just today I watched another masterpiece on queer love, the film Pillion created and directed by English film director and screenwriter Harry Lighton in his feature directorial debut, itself based on the 2020 novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, and starring brilliant performances by actors Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård. Maybe different from a “twin flame” dynamic, but still psychological in its portrayal of BDSM and homoeroticism, the interactions between the two central characters Colin (Melling) and Ray (Skarsgård) very much mirror what I felt with my twin flame when we were trying to experience togetherness. The look on Ray’s face [spoiler alert!] (again, kudos to Skarsgård for his nuance and artistry in his portrayal of the character) almost at the end of the movie shows the impossibility of real vulnerability between him and Colin, when both characters break the rigid boundaries of the submissive-dominant dynamic, as Ray and Colin kiss each other at park in a very romantic way, sharing a beautiful, emotional moment that might be too expansive for Ray’s controlled intimacy style.
In watching Ray’s expression once he realises the depth and vulnerability of his love for Colin through their shared kiss, I could see the semblance of fear that my twin flame himself would show me once he started feeling like being with me could be a “point of no return”. Both Ray and my twin embodied this archetype of “avoidant attachment”, meaning that the immediate trigger to emotional vulnerability and the prospect of real intimacy for them was to become the “runner”—which [spoiler alert!] Ray does become himself by leaving Colin without any notice. As in fiction imitating reality, the pain of abandonment helped both Colin as well as myself grow, by attracting healthier, more grounded relationships. Once one polarity heals—by the “chaser” finally finding its true divine femininity and no longer operating from lack or insecurity—the other side of the mirror stops reflecting fear and scarcity, and starts to show a clear picture of mutuality and resemblance.
The pain of living healthy queer romance seems to be in understanding that, unlike heteronormative relationships, it has no active template to draw inspiration from. Hence my belief that “twin flames” are also extremely important in same-sex relationships, because they help question notions on love and intimacy that have long been laid out by media, literature and culture on what queer love should look like.
So, after having been blocked on messaging apps, being accused of stalking behaviours by my twin flame, and being told to “never contact him again”, I finally understood the lesson that I had been struggling with for the past 34 years of my life: real love does not need to be earned. I think if more people had this epiphany earlier in life, trauma bonded relationships wouldn’t even be a thing. Mind you, I’m not saying that “twin flames” are inherently “toxic”, but the human behaviours that arise from the intensity of this connection can very much drive someone to the point of insanity and unhealthy dynamics, that are anything but divine.
It’s the first time in years, though, that I no longer feel longing for my divine counterpart. It’s almost as if we had never even met each other in the physical world. The sense of completion, integration and compassion I feel for him is immense and profound, despite any disagreements that happened between us before. Sometimes I stare into the abyss thinking: what if he contacted me today? Would I still feel the intensity and push-pull energy from before, or would this have finally subsided? Could we be together in a conventional romantic relationship, or would we not even be so interested in each other anymore, because the lesson itself has been completed and integrated?
All I know is that wherever he is, I still love him deeply, and always will. And I love and will continue to love myself for understanding now that chemistry and compatibility are two completely different things. I’m no longer striving for a reunion with my twin flame, or for a reconnection between us. Que será, será. Whatever will be, will be. Maybe that’s why psychologists say that healthy relationships feel boring at first to someone who has only experienced intensity and drama in their relationships before that turning point. No one is truly prepared to experience the peace and quiet of calm waters after the constant soul stirring of trauma bonded relationships and inconsistent dynamics.
After all, safety can feel like danger when everything one has experienced is intermittent reinforcement and abandonment. But I guess the framework of “twin flames” helps us understand that love is more complex than mundane concepts and human logic.
Ma armastan sind, naljamees.
I’m grateful for both of us freeing each other from karmic templates and ancestral wounding.
Namaskar!