I have discovered that I have certain rules for dances. I discovered that I had them some time ago, actually, but I have been refining them ever since. The rules are different depending on whether or not you have a date. If you have no date, the typical rule I have is just "Unless you have a valid reason not to dance (poor equilibrium, in pain, religious beliefs), you ought to dance with anyone who asks at least once." When you have a date, however, dancing is limited differently. My personal rules look something like this:
RULE 1: I will only dance...
1) with my date.
2) in a group.
3) by myself.
Therefore, I do not dance with anyone else, friend or otherwise, while on a date. I toyed with the idea of allowing "anyone my date tells me to dance with" on the list as well, but that has some unpleasant potential implications.
RULE 2: On any slow dance, I will make eye contact with my date, and I will never look over her shoulder at other dancers.
This is just plain rude. You're there with your date. Not the other dancers. She should have your complete focus. All the time.
RULE 3: I will not hold my date to the first two rules.
This took a lot of personal growth on my part to allow this, but I realize that other people do like to dance with friends, and it would be rather inflexible of me to insist on all of her attention for the entire night.
RULE 4: My date sets the level of intimacy for the dancing.
I never pull a date close if I don't know how comfortable she is with me. If she wants to dance close, we dance close. If she wants space, we dance with a reasonable distance between us.
These are what come to mind. It just seems like common courtesy to me. What about you, oh faithful readers?
3 comments:
I agree with most of what you say here. However, I've always found that extended periods of up close eye contact can prove to be awkward and slightly creepy during the slow dances.
um, i don't really have rules for going to dances with or without a date.
when i've had a date, it has been mostly exclusive, but that might also be because i was dating that person at the time.
i agree with dan, that extended eye contact is sometimes extremely creepy. and awkward. and unhelpful if the girl wants to put her head on your shoulder.
"This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."
I need you to know, that this line that you loved to describe the Batman/Joker relationship, is a quote from Adaptive Structuration theory, and it describes the dueling forces of freely chosen human action and group structures that are no respectors of persons.
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