I feel inclined to both like people and not trust them.
Part of the reason why I had trouble committing to coming out to swing dancing weekly for a long time (aside from becoming busy with things) was that I didn't really feel like I fit in with the swing crowd. Still don't. I always feel like one of those misfits standing off to the side, unable to really socialize with anyone beyond the context of a single dance itself because I have trouble finding much to say to anyone. I can dance okay now and stuff- heck, it was even more difficult when I barely knew anything and always felt like I was letting the follow down from making so many mistakes and not being able to do much- but now I just feel like I can dance around for a bit with someone and then that's it. I can respond well enough if someone else hits up a conversation with me on the spot, but I find that most of the time people on the dance floor are focused on other things or are busy talking to other people they already know anyway.
And after months of that every week, it just started getting lonely, in a way, lonelier than I ever really felt when I was actually alone at home minding my own business. I felt more comfortable dancing with random strangers than I did with the people whose faces I recognized from seeing around every week, who by proxy already knew other people there as well. I may have talked to the folks in the latter category once or twice, but it'd only take another week and then it'd be like we'd never really interacted at all. And that's just awkward.
Maybe it's just my overall mood whenever I'm around people: I'm the kind of person who prefers to be reached out to than to do the reaching out by nature, and when no one interacts with me first I usually end up just standing there awkwardly. It pretty much defines my experience at IV for a good chunk of the time I was there, and a lot of other social experiences. It takes me a long time to warm up to most people in general (and when I actually think about it, it took me a rather long time to actually get closer to most of my existing friends; 5 years, 1 year, 1.5 semesters, and 1.5 years all come to mind).
What it comes down to largely is trust, and I've realized that I take a rather long time to get to a point of trusting people enough to even just talk to them like a normal friend. It's as if you'd need to pass some test or measure of trustworthiness in my head (apparent willingness to reciprocate in conversation; apparent friendliness; etc.) before I'd feel comfortable enough to open up to you, and with regards to the atmosphere of social dancing, it's really difficult to maintain a conversation where you'd get a good feel for those things with another person while the music's blaring and loads of other people are dancing and just running about and whatnot. And sometimes I feel like it's the same attitude that other people have towards me, considering that I'm generally quiet and not very openly sociable to begin with. To me it usually feels like the other person is just disinterested in continuing talking after a certain point, which I find normal anyway because I also do the same thing.
I found last night that none of this has really changed for me since the time I stopped coming out to the dances over a year ago; the only difference is that I'm not letting this stop me from wanting to continue learning new moves and techniques just for the sake of enjoying learning those things. Maybe if I got out of the mentality of worrying about socializing with people and just tried to enjoy the experience of dancing for what it is, I'd actually feel more comfortable socializing on the dance floor for once... ironically.
I don't blame folks who disappear after a couple of weeks or even a few months or so, because it honestly takes a real commitment and love of dance to keep coming out consistently, week after week. If you're just there to try and meet people or casually dance a little, you can only go so far.
Well, there's always next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment