BS: Dancing & Possessiveness

Subject: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,I'd Rather Not Say
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 06:26 AM

I've met an interesting person of the appropriate gender.

They are very into dancing. A lot of swing, which is not as close as, say the Lambada, but much closer and more intimate than square dancing. They like to go dancing more frequently than I do. If we get closer, like in a monogamous dating situation, would I have the "right" to ask them to only go dancing when I go and to dance mostly with me? Or would that be too possessive? If I felt very strongly about it and they refused, should that necessarily be a "deal-breaker" for the relationship? Or would I just be being an idiot?

I like this person a lot. But I am very conflicted and confused about this. Thanks for your thoughts. This has kept me up at night.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Jim Martin
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:07 AM

This can be a tricky one! Some dancers would love to have a regular partner who they know & trust & are familiar with, so far as their dancing foibles are concerned (there are many such out there)- then again, there are some dancers who would hate that & love to ring the changes as it were! I guess there's no harm in asking?

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Wesley S
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:16 AM

"would I have the "right" to ask them to only go dancing when I go and to dance mostly with me?"

That sounds like a great way to kill a relationship to me. If you lose this partner over a couple of dances with someone else then the relationship wasn't there in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:26 AM

Surely One of the traditional functions of a ball or dance has been to enable acquaintance with a wider circle to be made, in a respectably organised setting, specifically on the expectation of varying one's partners for the occasion; even in the case of married couples attending.

See Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and the many distinguished novels from Jane Austen to Rosamund Lehmann and E M Delafield, in which dancing with various partners figures largely both as plot-developer and social symbol.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:28 AM

Who said "dancing was vertical expression of horizontal desire" ???

But you might ask on the mailing lists at:

Trad-Dance-Callers
[e-mail];

English Country Dance and related forms
[e-mail];

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:29 AM

If you restrict the relationship partner to only dance the way you choose it might make the potential partner resentful later on.   Dancing is only an expression after all and there must be something about this person that makes you want to make it more permanent. It would be a shame to ruin a friendship over this. As long as they have the same understanding about anything that you enjoy then it shouldn't be a problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,Albert Loghead
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 08:56 AM

Dancing ??? bloody big jessie dancing !!!???

what excuse for a man enjoys dancing !!!!!!?????

Darts and skittles and arm wrestling and all other proper manly pub sports, yes !!!!!

but bloody dancing !!!???

Even the thought of it's enough to make a grown man cry ....


If I was a woman I'd have absolutely nothing to do with a man who confesses a liking for dancing.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Wesley S
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 09:16 AM

Put the shoe on the other foot. You're in a new relationship. The other person says - "That music thing you like - it's kind of intimate. I'd prefer in the future that you only sing or play your guitar when I'm around. Don't do it with anyone else or when I can't be there to observe you"

How would that sound to you?

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 09:32 AM

"If we get closer..." and you're already making demands and setting up deal breakers?
Are you still in high school?

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,Albert Loghead
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 11:37 AM

Good Lord what's it all coming to ???

Dancing !!!!!???

You mark my words,.. soon that barmy femunist PC brigade will be forcing a bloke to do 'kissing' !!!!

thank God it's the end of the world today..

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: bfdk
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 11:55 AM

Is this the sort of dancing your 'person of the appropriate gender' is into? It sure looks like good fun, and it also looks like something you couldn't hope to do to his/her level, unless you were prepared to practice quite a lot.

I'm a keen dancer. Not a 'great' dancer by any standards, but getting better all the time because I work at it and am lucky to have good partners with whom I can practice and get better at what I do. The thrill of mastering a new set of steps or a new dance is, I think, the same as you get when you master a new tune on your guitar, fiddle, squeezebox or whatever instrument you play.

It has nothing to do with sex or relationships or anything of that nature. In fact, if a couple dancing together are rubbing fronts, one or both are bound to be out of balance, which is exactly what dancing is *not* about.

I don't know about the 'someone' you've met, but if a bloke I just met were to tell me that I could only dance with him (and he wasn't up to my own standard or better to compensate for the exclusiveness), I'd resent that very much. Even if he were better than me, I'd soon end up resenting the fact that he was setting boundaries for me and start wondering what he'd deny me next. I honestly don't think such a relationship would last long.

Would you have the same problem if he were into, say, rugby, and was forever rolling around on the field grabbing at a bunch of sweaty blokes all groping for a ball??

Just my two pennies worth.

Bente

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: artbrooks
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 01:12 PM

I'm not into swing, but I do a lot of contra and international folk dance. At these venues, dancing with multiple partners is accepted and expected. I'd suggest going to one or two of the dances the object of your desire attends and watching to see if that is routine there - if so, suggesting that he/she become 'monogamous' would be entirely unappropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 02:16 PM

I think they'd resent it, I know I would. You just can't dictate to people like that. (Well, you can, but they won't hang around!)

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 03:38 PM

If it was Morris Dancing you wouldn't go getting jealous, or feel obliged to take it up.

Or Tennis.   Dancing is a kind of sport after all.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 03:40 PM

It never ceases to amaze me just what bothers other people.

Whay pray do you mean by "appropriate gender"?

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: BTNG
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 03:45 PM

"Dancing is a kind of sport after all."
They'll be wanting it back in the Olympics next. Having said that it's interesting to note that there is an active campaign to get something called "Dancesport" aka Ballroom dance included as an Olympic event....

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 05:06 PM

Either (learn to {want to}) go dancing with them or let them continue dancing without you IF it turns out they still want to when/if you do get monogamous; it's quite possible that they either will drag you alolng or won't want to go without you by that point...

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: gnu
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 06:52 PM

"would I have the "right" to ask them to only go dancing when I go and to dance mostly with me..."

No. You can ask them to go dancing with you. After they dance with you, I am sure they will only want to go dancing with you ever again.

If not, their loss and you are better off.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Janie
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 08:08 PM

Good for you for at least questioning yourself.

You have the right to ask for whatever you want. Other people have the right to say sure, to deny your request, or even to be put off by it.

Better to be honest early in the courtship "dance." Might not faze the other at all. They may be a person who mistakes jealousy for passion and for whom a jealous lover assuages their own unhealthy insecurity about themselves. Or they may be quite put-off and see it as a red flag.   Better you both find this out early on, rather than either one of you be blindsided later, after you are more emotionally entangled.

You also might consider taking personal responsibility for your jealousy and what it may signal that you could benefit from working through, either on your own or with some professional help. It appears to make you at least somewhat uncomfortable or I think you wouldn't be posting. Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad. They are non-specific signals or information about ourselves and/or our situations. Ask yourself what your awareness of jealousy is signalling.

Best of luck to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 08:29 PM

"We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced once." Nietzsche

To dance is to live.

Just a couple of examples of what you could be asking a person to give up.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 05:21 AM

Culture-- Belief--

There are some cultures and/or belief systems in which dancing is a little more complicated matter than current psych or "rights" values. I would want to know how the belief system in which this scruple is operating might come into play, and within that I would ask if there is a greater good trying to be won here, and how that is served or not served by the discomfort around the dancing.

From there, these sorts of questions (in no particular order or combination) might arise: "What are you REALLY trying to accomplish? Is dancing the only place in the new relationship where there's a fly in the ointment? Is it a fly or a butterfly? What is consistent with your belief system? Is that system working for you? Has it always felt like this or is this a new concern? When and how did this start being an issue? Why are you asking about this here instead of asking your partner? Does s/he share your beliefs/culture or are you inviting them to? What would be in it for them to consider that?"

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 07:17 AM

I see a thread on Knitting Circles has just reemerged. Would the same problems arise in relation to them?

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 11:08 AM

If you're smart, as far as you'll go is to ask the partner to save a dance for you when you're out together. Placing limits on such a pleasurable form of exercise for this person you fancy would be a mistake.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 05:56 PM

'Who said "dancing was vertical expression of horizontal desire" ???'


"Dancing: The vertical expression of a horizontal desire legalized by music."

GB Shaw.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 05:57 PM

I think you have met your dealbreaker and it is not boding well for a relationship..I would consider letting this one go and finding a nice woman who doesn't dance much..the woods are full of them...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: Janie
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 09:39 PM

Well said, mg.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 03:25 PM

Contra dance: attention without intention.

Subject: RE: BS: Dancing & Possessiveness
From: GUEST,IRNS
Date: 02 Nov 11 - 10:27 PM

Yes, I am very insecure. However, I have been taking lessons with another beginner that are going well. And the original potential partner seems interested in the fact that I am dancing at all. I have made my peace with us both dancing with others, as long as it is not intimately close, like the Lambada, which is pretty much like having sex with your clothes on. I think this partner will respect that. I sense that she will want to dance with me a lot. I mean, I am straight. And fewer straight men dance than women. So she will want to enjoy a lot of time with me.


Thanks for listening. I think I'll be alright.