Is this repeatable?

I am taking salsa dance lessons, something Alla and I have been intending to do for a long time. Unfortunately, Alla was not feeling up to dancing when the class started, so I went to the first two lessons alone last week. Wanting to practice and solidify what I learned, I agreed to meet some of my fellow students at a dance club this evening.

I showed up just after seven p.m. and saw a few people already dancing and others mingling at tables. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize anybody from my class and I felt awkward about patrolling around and peering at everybody sitting in the cozy booths at the side of the room. So I sat down on a stool near the dance floor and decided that at least I could watch people dance and try to absorb a sense of style and a few moves. I did notice a few unattached women in the area, but felt decidedly uneasy about foisting myself on any of them. In the first place, I don’t know many steps and I felt pretty confident that I’d be a boring partner after a few moments. And in the second place, I doubted that any of these women would really want to be taken out of circulation when a more age-appropriate and availability-appropriate partner might come along.

After a while, a young woman sat down across the room and looked at me like she wouldn’t be offended if I came to talk. So I did. I told her that I felt odd there because I don’t know many steps at all, and that I was sorry that none of my dance-classmates had arrived. She said that she didn’t know a whole lot of steps either, and the guy she wanted to dance with hadn’t shown up yet. “So,” I asked, “do you want to dance with me?”

She said yes. But when I tried to dance with her, she asked me what I was doing. It turns out that the only steps I know are for a different style of music, and I needed to know a whole new set of steps for this music. So she taught me, very patiently, until I got it. I mean, she was REALLY patient. So we danced until I could more-or-less repeat everything she taught me without coaching and we both agreed that we needed a break. She stayed with me, with no apparent embarrassment, to sit down over mineral water and have a chat.

Ultimately we had a new problem when her guy came in. He came over and introduced himself, and then went off to dance with another girl. My kind new friend suggested that we should go out and lock down what she’d taught me, so we danced a bit longer. Then I told her that I felt bad about keeping her away from her young man. She said that it was traditional for the guy to do the asking, and I pointed out that this might be difficult for him while I was dancing with her, so I took her over to his table and we both sat down with him. After a few minutes’ pleasantries, I headed home and left my young lady with the guy she was hoping to see.

What really tickles me about this is the openness of this young woman to spend an hour with me while she was waiting for her friend to arrive. It’s really hard to imagine that this would have happened in the U.S. Maybe that’s just because I’ve never been in such a situation before, but I suspect I am here the beneficiary of a culture where families do more things together. We’ll see. And I’m curious if it will work for Alla next time as well. It’s great spending a little while with a partner who knows some new steps.