Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Wedding bands and other subtleties

Hula and I are down to our last week of dance class. I'm not planning to take the next session much to her disappointment. I have a bit of traveling coming up next month, both vacation and work, which would interfere too much. Plus, it'll be nice to have the option to go dance rather than feel obligated to be there.

Hula is a pretty gal who has the sweetest disposition. If you met her, you couldn't possibly not like her. She and Drummer have been married for three years (and dated for four). They actually met through dancing. She loves all sort of dancing and is always taking lessons or going dancing.

As you may recall, I've whined about the fact that Hula always has someone asking her to dance. She gets attention from many guys who I wish would ask me to dance. I see her not only dancing with them, but chatting with them for a few minutes after a song is finished.

A few weeks ago, she appeared to develop a rapport with one fellow who's been in our dance class the past two sessions who I'll call IceRim. He's thin, average height, and probably in his early 30s. I've tried making small talk with him during practice, but he never engages. He always seeks her out during the open dance for at least a song or two.

In this dance culture, it's perfectly fine making friends of either gender. It's the nature of the this dance's diehards. We're not talking a dimly lit room with booth tables and a well-stocked bar. People leave their stuff against the wall, change into their dance shoes, and politely ask others to dance. The staff are all volunteers who do it to dance for free.

Last week, IceRim must have wanted more quality time with Hula. He danced with her very soon after the open dance started. I went off and dance with a couple guys. During a break, I noticed they were sitting at the front of the dance floor talking. They were still there a couple songs later. I must admit, I was curious why there were spending so much time NOT dancing.

Later, Hula confessed that she was concerned about IceRim. She wondered whether he has noticed the wedding band she wears. Her impression was that he is a quiet and intense person. She enjoys talking to him but is worried he's looking for more (or maybe he was in a needy mood that night). After talking for a several songs, she knew it was time to move on, but she said it was difficult because he just kept talking and looking at her. Hula said he was giving that intense, eyes locked look at her as they sat. She finally had to be obvious and excuse herself from the conversation by saying, "let's go dance with some other people."

We talked about how obvious she should be this week. Does she actually need to work "husband" into the conversation - "This weekend my HUSBAND and I went to a BBQ." How could he not notice the wedding band, especially since this is partner dancing and you do occasionally need to grab the follower's left hand?

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The funny thing is the reverse conversation came up over the weekend with some guy dancers, Hunch and Lex. The two guys were telling me about this gal who is a great dancer. When she first showed up on the scene (less than a year ago), a lot of guys were hanging around with her. It was obvious many guys were interested in her. What people were unaware of is that she's engaged to someone who lives two hours away. Note that women have a tendency to not want to wear a lot of jewelry dancing because the risk of scratching the guys or getting it caught in the clothing.

Hunch commented how he felt pretty stupid about exchanging phone numbers with her once he learned that she was engaged. He was clearly disappointed at the time. We all agreed that people who are not available have a responsibility to make it clear on the dance floor. Granted, it's uncomfortable and potentially dangerous to wear an engagement ring dancing, but maybe she could have found some other flat ring to wear for this situation.

1 comment:

zerodoll said...

i think you'd have to be incredibly dense not to notice someone's wedding ring; it's always the first thing i look for, even now that i'm dating someone. it gives you some idea upfront about a person's intentions/availability, etc. some people also just don't care if someone is taken. :(