Salsa.

On Sunday I tried dancing again ???? and I’ve got plenty of thoughts about it.

I used to dance before, but it just wasn't right. It never felt comfortable to me. I was depressed and anxious and not in my right mind, and I was surrounded by toxicity.

I could never just relax, be in the moment. There were always a million power plays involved to me, lots of cliquey behaviour, competition with other people, and trying to impress girls.

I’ve been in a very retrospective mood lately and realised that I could never have a nice time dancing because of a multitude of fears.

They only come out at certain times. I’m cool in a lesson. But that’s because I’m being given instructions, so I don’t feel pressure. For me the fear comes out when it’s freestyle. I’ve got the fear of being judged by others for my decisions when dancing I guess. Fear of being an unsatisfying dance. Fear of making a mistake or something, or some other social faux pas. Not being enough in some way.

And also, just being *seen* in general. Like, I’m there in the bar and people are dancing in the middle. I’m quite literally surrounded by people that are watching me as entertainment. Not me alone, there is everyone else. But for me, that’s the huge thing. Really psyches me out big time.

I know it’s not just me by the way. I’m aware now that there are MANY people who would love to dance (or at least give it a shot) but have their own invisible barriers to cross, but they all ultimately come from the same sort of fear.

There are maybe the people who are furthest away. These are the people who think about what it would like to dance, but the “nos” fly in too fast and stamp out the idea before it can bloom. They’re like “nah, not me because of XYZ”. The specific reasons don’t really matter, all that matters is the underlying fear.

There were a load of people that had stopped to watch outside. They’re physically on the outskirts, seeing us through a doorway. They hadn’t entered the club with the intention to dance that night, they may not have any previous experience. But I think many of them saw it and would like to.

The next layer are the people who are inside but not dancing. This woman was right next to the dancers but she said she wanted to dance alone and isn’t ready for a partner. But salsa is a partner dance, and she’s still practising and… so she couldn’t dance. It sounds like she does sometimes, so she’s kinda almost there. I guess alongside this woman are the friends of people that dance. They already go to the clubs but are too uncomfortable to engage. I think they are reasonably close too.

There are people like me that are even closer, but still not there. I can actually go out alone and go to a lesson, but when it comes to actually creatively doing a full dance with one person, that’s where I melt. That’s kinda frustrating, but at least I can see those different components stopping me now.

Then there are people that are actually just dancing, living in the moment.

I dunno, I find reminding myself that I’m on an inexorable march towards death to be a good motivation to actually enter the club and pay for a ticket. But I guess you only need one fear to not enjoy dancing, and I’ve got others.

I still don’t actually RELAX. I can dance without actually ENGAGING with dancing, and that’s been 95% of my dances. I felt like I was performing even when I wasn’t performing, and that’s why I found it so tiring. The idea of picking someone to dance with because it would be fun is a relatively new concept. Aren’t you supposed to go for the person that makes your ego happy? Or, isn’t dancing merely a mechanism to chat up girls?

Look at the disconnect on that, sheesh! ?? I realised that this was why I should dance more again, to iron out some of these dummy ideas.

I think it’s probably okay for a 20 year old kid to have that mindset, or more okay at least. But after having been exposed to such intense levels of narcissism and toxicity from a few close people in that world, it left me with an extremely warped view of dancing in general.

(I love teaching dancing by the way, and none of these concerns turn up then. But that’s because I know what steps to do, it doesn’t have to be creative in the same sense.)

…The social anxiety is kinda separate from my dancing baggage, that’s more a seasoning for the dish. In fact, I’d say that isn’t such a big thing for me now… it’s more just pure social… unpreparedness or sumthin’ like that.

I’ll explain that: over the past year and a half there have been like multiple month (or even two month) long periods where I had zero, and I mean ZERO physical contact with another human being. Not even an accidental touch of the hand as I give change. No hugs, no handshakes, no nothin’.

So to then dance rueda where you’re dancing with 12 women over the course of a single 3 minute song… that on its own without any other baggage would be SUPER overwhelming.

This is coming from the guy who refuses to use TikTok because it’s too intense on my eyes and ears. I always say I enjoy extremes, but that's because I find lots of things wild and extreme. I think to make the conscious decision to live as a human is absolutely nuts.

I think you can see where I struggle with dancing in general ?? holding hot women that you don’t know is reeeeally intense for me.

But yeah, if we can untangle some of this baggage, salsa actually IS fun. It always was; my interpretation of it was the massive problem. It’s a nice activity to do. And it’s a nice way to meet people.

And yeeeees, okayyyyy… it is probably the best way to meet people of the opposite sex. That is true, blatantly true, undeniably true.

I think that only helped to warp my outlook on dancing though, especially as a recovering toxic dude.

On Sunday when I was dancing with one lady, she told me I have a massive smile, I seemed so happy. And I thought damn, I should probably do more of this. Have one social thing that I can do across the world, y’know? But more than that, it pushes my buttons so hard, it’ll be great for me to be able to dance comfortably without getting so up in my head.

I’m gonna dance a lot more ??