Dusting Off the Shoes

Today is Artistic Wednesday, and I must praise the committee of the Edinburgh swing-dance society I fled earlier this autumn. Depressed by the snobbishness of the society, particularly the evil LEADS, I decided not to spend another penny of household income in lessons and workshops. As regular readers will recall, I was late in dropping out of the last workshop, so I got a nasty phone call from a male stranger.

Now, this next part is genius. This is how you win friends and influence people.

Feeling irate, I emailed the committee to tell them that I had had an angry phone call from a member of their team and please take me off their list.

The committee emailed back to say they were really sorry and the individual responsible would no longer be on the team. They hoped I would come back as I was a valued member of the society. I recognized two of the three names signed to the bottom of this email, and I remembered that they are friendly women, one particularly cheerful and kind.

I was a bit taken aback that the chap was leaving the team (surely not because of my email?), and I giggled at the idea that I was a valued member of the society. Although if I have learned anything from the Leads, it is that I am not a valued member of the society, I felt flattered all the same.

So I wrote back to thank the committee for their email and to explain why I was not coming back. I had met many great women, and a few nice men, but the power imbalance between the Leads and the Followers, exacerbated by the local habit of women asking men to dance, was just too much. Also nothing marginalizes Beginners more than group dances like the Shim Sham, which are never taught, for we have to stand back looking on wistfully while the Advanced folk take to the floor.

(I learned all the power imbalance and marginalization lingo at theology school, and it is very useful for talking to university students.)

I expected nothing but a cold silence, for who was I to tell them how to run their society, eh? But to my amazement, I received ANOTHER email from the society telling me that I was right about the power imbalance, and how they had come up with a Code of Etiquette in which to train up new Leads, and as there would be a workshop on the group dances this coming week, they were inviting me to attend for free.

At this point I thought, Holy guacamole. Maybe I am a valued member of the society! 

So I wrote back to tell them that  I would take them up on their invitation and, what's more, throw in the £3 for the social dance. There are, after all, two or three chaps there that I enjoy dancing with, and sometimes a fellow Canadian turns up who is happy to talk to anyone.

Of course, I am not convinced that I want to go back to spending my Wednesday nights smiling away and saying "Oh, good job" to a pack of male dance snobs. However, I must admit that the committee really care about winning and keeping new members in their society. And that you really do catch more disgruntled flies with honey than with vinegar.

Spoiled Fruit of the Revolution

I'm on a earn-more-spend-less kick, so I have stopped going to swing-dancing. It's a pity, as that was my guaranteed weekly exercise, and there are two guys there who are afraid of most of the other women, so they always danced with me. I like them: they were refreshingly humble, modest and clumsy. They knew they were clumsy, and they knew I didn't care. To say with with no irony whatsoever, who am I to judge?

Yesterday, after sitting around all day writing my brains out and growing fat, I got a phone call--I think from a mobile, as the reception was so bad. I muted the TV, and the caller became audible. He had phoned about the weekend "Balboa" workshop I had signed up for, as I hadn't paid yet. I apologized for not having contacted the society earlier to ask them to take my name off the list, saying something like, "I'm sorry I should have mentioned this earlier." "Yes,  you should have," snarled the stranger. "But I usually get an email," I stammered. "I sent you an email," he snapped. "What's your name again?" I asked, so ladies, Balboa-dancing M. is not the guy you want to take home to your mother.

M. had sent me the email the day before, and I had not seen it, as I had been busy writing, shopping, cleaning, cooking, entertaining, and then sitting in bed most of the next day writing some more. So I thought M. was right out of line snarling and snapping at me over the phone, and when I found the email from the "team" I told them a member of their "team" had made an angry phone call and please take me off their mailing list.

This is where I start judging, just so you know.

As I've mentioned (and as my mother will confirm), I know not how to suffer in silence, so I mentioned the event on Facebook and soon got a mention from a  local swing-dancer--one of the best, perhaps the best, followers in the club. She is kind, beautiful, hip, graceful, talented and in her mid-twenties. I would introduce her to Polish Pretend Son if she were not also an atheist. She wanted to know what had happened, and I ranted about swing being a "young woman's game" and how to be asked to dance one has to be either an advanced dancer already, or young and attractive.

And this truly charming, objectively pretty, unusually graceful girl wrote that she isn't asked to dance all that often herself. She usually asks men to dance, and they often turn her down. Some always turn her down--she doesn't know why.

"What!?" I inwardly screeched.  "What the h--- is wrong with those guys?!"

My hypotheses are two-fold:

1. Local men who swing-dance are spoiled rotten by the female attention.
2. Some men resent women asking them to dance and so won't dance with women who do, even if they are young and pretty and guaranteed not to miss a cue.

My kindly advanced-dancer Facebook friend is not from Edinburgh and noted that "girls-asking-guys" is the culture here. (Presumably this isn't the culture where she's from, and guess where that is? One guess.) And because she is so kind, I don't have the heart to tell her I think she is helping to perpetuate the problem.

M. might have just been having a bad day, but even then  I am not sure why M. thought that a good reason enough to snap and snarl at a woman on the phone, one who could identify him over Facebook in two clicks. Martyn must have thought it didn't matter a damn, and in a way he's right. Women at swing-dance want to dance with men, and M. is a man, and women probably ask him to dance all the time. I could denounce M. from the housetops, and still the eager young ladies of the Edinburgh swing scene will want to dance the Balboa with him.

Back when convention dictated that women didn't ask men to dance, dance organizers made sure there were indeed men who would ask wallflowers to dance. Hotels hired male as well as female professional dancers to dance with guests. Mothers poked their sons (and sisters poked their brothers) and hissed, "Dance with Samantha. She's been sitting there for fifteen minutes." Men asked women for dances in advance and women wrote their names down in a charming little notebook. Everyone knew that women couldn't ask men, and so there was a lot of social pressure on men to ask women. Now "of course women can ask men" is treated like a massive advance, but in practice it turns men into Scarlett O'Hara.

I am always annoyed when I read men saying they started a rock band to meet girls or had fantasies of girls throwing themselves at them. That's nice, but why don't they just march up to girls at parties and say "Hi! I'm [the host]'s friend from school/work/club/church. How do you know him?" If they like the girl, they can bring her a drink or something afterwards and have another conversation. How hard is that?

Believe it or not, this is a serious question, for when I think of the attractive young Catholic twenty-something men that I know, not-spoiled, not-snarling, not-rude, I wonder why so many of them don't have girlfriends. As a twenty-something, I would have hit on any of them, and not because I was this incredibly deep twenty-something. I would have gone out with them for intensely shallow reasons, protected from my folly by their own sterling characters. (Rather like I was protected from any fallout from my infatuated marriage-in-haste by the fact that B.A. actually is the perfect man for me.) So why do they not have girlfriends? They're tall! They're smart! Two have proper jobs! One has a car! I don't understaaaaaaaaaand!

It's such a waste of twenty-something Catholic bachelor that it makes me cross. And meanwhile those spoiled wretches at swing-dancing have women chasing after them for dances. What a world. I cry.

Further Thoughts on Acceptance and Exclusion in Dance

When I was 12 or so, I thought I'd sign up for ballroom dancing lessons. My mother thought this a good idea and signed up my brother, too, with the promise that she would increase his allowance. Apparently paying brothers to escort sisters to dancing lessons was one of my mother's beliefs. Sadly, the course was undersubscribed and therefore cancelled. It would be more than a decade before I learned the mysteries of the waltz, the foxtrot, the tango and the polka.

The assumption was that one needs to go to dance lessons with a willing partner, but nowadays many dance classes assure the potential subscriber that partners are not needed. Certainly swing-dancing classes in Edinburgh rotate partners, and if sometimes there are not men enough to go around, some plucky women take the lead role. Still, I see some fortunate women bringing leads with them, which means they are guaranteed someone to dance with them at the subsequent socials, and if they stumble and their leads make faces, the girls can kick them in the shins or give them heck at home instead of cringing and smiling in that horrible, weak, subordinate way women so frequently employ. Please forgive me, kind sir. If I could I would self-combust so as to remove my sub-human self from your celestial orbit.

Given that to get through a swing-dancing social as a solo beginner one might need a skin of rawhide, I am rethinking my advice to Single women to take up partner dancing as a way to meet people. The dance world is very big and varied, though, so I will just posit that different clubs have different philosophies when it comes to welcoming beginners. If you're a skilled dancer already, then by all means do not be afraid to join a club in a new town and go to their socials. In cold Edinburgh, I note that there is an unspoken acknowledgement of the aristocracy of talent. If, however, you are a beginner, you may wish to observe and judge how well the organizers welcome complete novices before deciding to risk the socials.

Naturally there will be classes for beginners. And naturally beginners will drop out again and again and again. Thus, those beginner classes never seem to get old and never stop attracting new money. After almost a year of them, I have noticed that new faces tend to disappear after just one or two classes, and how there is an exodus of learners once the social begins. There is a corresponding influx of the old hands, who for the most part dance with each other.

Meanwhile, I have gone to socials almost weekly for six months, and the only conversations I have had there that went deeper than the smallest small talk have been about Polish literature.  (That said, I had an excellent lunch-time talk about religious faith with a visiting Canadian during a Saturday of workshops.)

The question the Single woman will want to ask herself before she sails out for a night of partner-dancing is, "How much more feeling of being-passed-over-by-men can I take?" You pay your money and you take your chances. Me, £5.50 for a lesson and then an hour of, perhaps, not dancing with a soul, is not a painful investment. The lesson will certainly be worth £5.50, and if no-one at all dances with me afterwards, I just go home to my husband and it doesn't matter. £5.50 and an hour of my life--not a bad risk. If my ego takes a topple, B.A. provides a soft landing.

However, I have quite a lot of rejection in my life already. As a freelance writer, I send out material, and sometimes it is accepted, and sometimes it is rejected. Lately I have forced myself to send out fictional stories--my first great love--to magazines, and the magazines gaily reject them. Recently I got two rejections on the same day. That would have been a bad day to find myself at a swing-dancing social, no fellow beginners in sight.

If you are already in a very comfortable place in your life, with a strong emotional support network, and work or study you enjoy and excel at, a bit of cold-shouldering won't hurt you. You may even find it bracing, in a "I'll show them I'm no lightweight" kind of way. However, if you are feeling kicked by life, then I would recommend choosing some other activity than one that entails you having to ask men to dance or standing around hoping men will ask you to dance--unless you are already a very fine dancer indeed. If you are a fine dancer, then I would definitely recommend dancing as a way to meet people, although heaven knows what the fine dancers I see all talk about.  Maybe the feelings of affirmation and the fun of dancing will be enough for you. 

I will ponder further the subject of clubs and activities most likely to welcome and affirm Single women. For the time being, I would suggest picking something that plays to your strengths. If you are crazy about wildflowers, a hiking club might be appreciative of your knowledge of the little feathery things at the side of the path.

Update: To be fair, I have enjoyed myself enough for the past six months to smile through anything. I  even wrote such positive reviews of a swing performance at the Edinburgh Festival that I totally forgot how miserable and out-of-place I felt there until B.A. reminded me. (Sad and embarrassing story. In short, everyone was invited to attend and support the locals in the show. I went happily and joined the people I recognized from swing-dancing on the bleachers. They either looked at me like I had two heads or ignored me completely. Mortifying.)  I may go in the future, if only to chat with other fish-out-of-water. But really, as you can see, I am too cross right now even to fake enjoyment and high spirits.  I am looking forward to seeing how the Toronto scene welcomes newcomers; I already know that Montreal has developed some fantastic ways to develop their community.

Shocking Excursion Back into Singledom

Poor Egg is not so good at the Texas Tommy.

Well, well, well. So this weekend did not pan out as planned, so your poor auntie got a reminder of what it is like to be passed over by dozens of men because she lacks the one thing the men are looking for. In this case it was the ability to dance like a woman who has been swing-dancing for several years.

I've been told you can get away with this lack if you are young and pretty (although not always). And certainly you can be much older than me, stouter, etc., and still be sought out as a dance partner. Heaven knows, there were a goodly number of nimble-footed women over 40 on the dance floor, but they were rarely me. 

Nope, what these women had in common was that they were very advanced swing-dancers and the men asked them to dance a lot. And when the men hesitated, they asked men to dance, and all was well. Alas, when I smiled at those I deemed the most likely to dance with me, since I have seen them almost every week for six months, their glances slid right by me.* This is the UK; we don't need words.

Naturally life has taught me that if there is anything you should not moan about, it is being overlooked by men, for your male hearers take this as their cue to overlook you themselves, but I doubt I will have the opportunity to dance with any of my six male readers anyway.  Oh, except the ones in my parish. Drat. Now they know. 

Well, it can't be helped. First priority is solidarity with my Single readers, so I thought they should know that being Single and female can really suck even when you're actually married.  This lesson cost me £55, but I offer it to you for free. 

Meanwhile, if you are a man (and not visibly scary), it doesn't matter if you are old, new, fat, thin, tiny or tall; women at international swing-dancing events will dance with you. They will not say no. They will even smile at you, no matter how basic your routines. They will smile and smile and smile because if there is one place where the patriarchy still means anything, it is on the dance floor. Trust me.

*There was one blessed exception to this. May God bless him. May he live to see his children's children. Oczywiście on był Polakiem. Niech Bóg go blogosławi. Niech on żyje widzieć dzieci swoich dzieci.

Talking to Strangers

One of my friend Alisha Ruiss's pals spent a day in Edinburgh, and I invited her over to the Historical House. The pal was fresh from Herrang, the Swedish village that hosts the principal Lindy Hop camp every summer. She's a professional Lindy Hop DJ and has been dancing since she was sixteen. Being newly converted to the Lindy Hop movement, I felt a bit like how a new first century Egyptian Christian must have felt had Saint Mark dropped by. I gave her tea and cookies and asked such questions as "What are your favourite swing blogs?" and "What are your favourite swing songs?" and, naturally, "How do I become a better dancer?"

And to this last question my guest replied, "Get to know the people that you're dancing with."  She asked me if I talked to people between dances and drank beer with them, and I admitted that I kept this to a bare minimum.

My guest travels all over the world with her 18 kilo backpack, putting a lot of faith in the kindness of strangers. This rather impressed me, as I don't have a lot of faith in the kindness of strangers myself. The iron entered my soul in elementary school, I was wary of most of the other girls in high school, pro-life activism did little to improve my expectations of humanity, and I was utterly terrified of strangers at uni. The paranoia of the faithful Scottish (cradle) Catholic minority has nothing on me.  I didn't relax until I entered Catholic theology school in Toronto. That was a very healing three years.

Outside Catholic circles, however, I expect strangers to hate, fear or despise me for being a practicing Catholic, the kind of Catholic who never says, "I'm a Catholic, but..." or "Well, I'm a Catholic and I think [exact opposite of Catholicism]." It was absolute torture to have to tell people at cocktail parties in Edinburgh the name of the paper I wrote for. Thank heavens I can now say, "I write thrillers." That said, an admission that I write for Catholic media led to a very interesting conversation with a straying member of the Separated Brethren, so maybe I shouldn't be so cowardly.

The admission was at a swing social, and the conversation began during the lunch break of a Saturday swing workshop. My conversation partner was a Canadian, because as I relax into the swing-dancing scene, I keep my ears open for transatlantic accents. Canadians who swing-dance often relieve the loneliness of travel by dropping into the local scene, and I hate the idea of some poor guy or girl from Toronto or Vancouver or Charlottetown or Saint-Ouain-Ouain standing on the sidelines not having anyone to talk to.

Putting aside my fear of strangers is thus made easier by my power (I live here) meeting his or her vulnerability (he /she doesn't) and feelings of responsibility (he/she's a Canadian abroad, I'm a Canadian abroad, I owe him/her a hello). Just bopping around the world talking to locals and hoping they'll give me a safe place to sleep---eek! Couldn't do it.

However, I was talking to thirteen year veteran of the international Lindy Hop scene, so I took her words about getting to know fellow dancers to heart. Friendships develop slowly in Europe, or in middle age. Becoming part of a scene, or recognized by people in one, can be glacial in speed. But happily in Lindy Hop circles one shares with the others a common interest--the music or the dance or both--and that provides a no-fail topic of conversation. Meanwhile, I've noticed that after five months of my turning up weekly (and saying "Hi"), more and more of the regulars have begun to say "Hi" first and ask my name.

So this week at swing-dancing, I didn't worry about dancing. I sat on a busted couch and watched the dancers. If I was asked to dance, I accepted with thanks, did my best, and chortled at our mishaps. But much of the time, I sat on the couch and talked with whoever else sat on the couch. We talked about how great the best dancers were and joked about our own efforts. I heard a suspiciously Canadian-sounding voice and marched up its owner to find out where he was from. Toronto. Really Toronto or near-Toronto-but-you've-never-heard-of-it? Scarborough--aha! Here for long? Just a few days to see the Festival, heading out tomorrow. Cool.

Alisha's pal told me that what is great about going to Herrang every year--and to other international swing festivals--is catching up with friends. I was puzzled about what these friendships were based on until I remembered that my father, a scholar in his seventies, still goes to international conferences at least twice a year. He sees the same people year after year, and they are all in his field. They are united by love for the field. Presumably they don't talk about extraneous controversies, for what would be the point of that? Wasted time--let's get back to the field! Presumably what these Lindy Hop friendships are based on is love for the jazz. Alisha's Pal is all about jazz.

Listening to Alisha's Pal after the dance this week turned lights on in my head. I mentioned to her that she really sank into her steps, and she observed that some of us Edinburghers dance rather "high", especially in our triple steps. "You have to love the s**t out of the triple step," she said sternly, as if the triple step was seriously that important. It obviously was to her, and it showed on the dance floor, not only because she was great but because of the way the other great dancers responded to her.

"That girl in the red top is the best Follower here," said Alisha's Pal when she plunked down beside me on the couch, and I smirked because talking to the girl in the red top is like pulling teeth. I suspect Red Top is so in love with jazz that it hurts her that so many people come to Lindy Hop without properly loving jazz. I suspect she feels that there is no point speaking to these ignorant people. So when Alisha's Pal asked her to dance,  I was suffused with glee, knowing that a smile would soon transform her gloomy face. Within two bars, Red Top lit up like the Mediterranean at dawn. I'm not the best reader of faces, but even I could see respect spread across it.

"She does a lot of solo jazz," I explained afterwards.

"I can tell," said Alisha's Pal.

All this is the EXACT OPPOSITE of those Tinder encounters we read about yesterday. The Tinder stuff is all about the cheap, the exploitative, the animal thrill of scratching a biological urge with a complete stranger, and bragging about it later. At best it's about getting something for nothing--a conversation with an interesting stranger to pass a boring afternoon. But a community based on a shared interest--like jazz dancing or tango or crime writing or Catholicism (more on this later)--is about shared enjoyment and service of that interest, with a hierarchy of respect, based on commitment and excellence, but with a certain amount of hospitality, too. You can show up to the Lindy Hop just to meet people but--guess what? Between dances, you won't get much more than the time of day from the best dancers unless you are (or get) serious about the shared interest.

If you shrieked in horror that I listed Catholicism as a shared interest like "jazz dancing", you haven't spoken to a seriously committed jazz dancer. The seriously committed jazz dancer is not lukewarm in his or her faith. He doesn't think "What has the jazz community done for me lately?" or "How come the jazz community doesn't do more to help jazz dancers marry each other?" or "How come the jazz community doesn't offer jazz camps for my four year old so I can get some time for myself?"  The seriously committed jazz dancer is, in a weird way, a better Catholic than a lot of Catholics because the jazz dancer is constantly looking for, and listening for the Source of All Jazz, and since the Source of All Creation is God, the jazz dancer is (bear with me here) seeking God.

I was very troubled while reading a post on a Traditional Latin Mass Facebook page: the poster said her non-Catholic roommate had just been diagnosed with multiple cancers and had very little time left to live. The poster sounded frantic. How did she convert her roommate to Catholicism before it was too late? Dear Lord, I thought. Somewhere is this poor person, shocked, terrified and facing the abyss, and instead of holding her hand and crying with her, her roommate is on the internet looking for help with last minute apologetics. No wonder people so often think Catholics are crazy and mean.

I've been puzzling over the solution to that situation, and to tell you the truth, I don't know. I admit it is a serious worry that so many people go to their deaths without believing or knowing or accepting the love of God, but I really don't think scaring or arguing a dying person into believing the Nicene Creed is what God wants us to do. The image I have in my head is of Alisha's people-trusting pal sitting with this unknown person for awhile in silence, and then playing her some Miles Davis.

And Two Steps Back

To buy or not to buy...

Oh, poppets. Such a terrible evening.

To put this into context, I had looked forward to swing class all week. When I ducked into charity shops, I looked for dresses and skirts that would be cool for swing-dancing. When I lost interest in whatever B.A. was watching on TV, I surfed the web for real swing-dancing shoes. I spent an hour yesterday looking for a pair of dark sneakers (plimsolls) my size to go with my new-to-me 1940s style dress. B.A. even came home early so we could have dinner together before I went to class. And I gave myself an hour to get there.

The first bad thing that happened was that the Rough Bus didn't turn up. After five minutes, I noticed a sign saying that the road ahead was closed--not just that there were works, which there have been. A car stopped beside me and the driver told me that a truck had crashed into the railway bridge, and not even pedestrians were being allowed through. So, rather peeved, I went back through the Historical Estate and marched through the woods in my city shoes to catch another bus.

Miraculously, I got to the Improvers' class only five minutes late. I put on my new sneakers and was raring to go. We were taught a complex series of steps, and I did my best to be a good follower: not leading, not anticipating, not messing up the steps, and always encouraging the lead. "Nobody died, that's the main thing" is the sort of thing I say to a red-faced lead. 

Then, half an hour in, horror. The instructors told the followers to become leads, and the leads to become followers. All of a sudden, I had to do everything in this complex series the opposite way from the way I learned. And I had to do it in such a way that not only completely violated the philosophy of being a good follower, it also contradicted my painfully learned lessons on how to get along with men in social situations. All of a sudden, I had to literally push them the way I wanted them to go. 

All the anxiety and the humiliation I suffered through in the early classes came roaring back. And whereas in the first classes I had expected to feel clumsy and horrible, as all my life dance classes had made me feel clumsy and horrible, I had come to expect to feel graceful or, if not graceful, at least gracious. And it was so painful and so disappointing, I signalled to a spare woman to come and take my partner. He, poor man, was shocked, and she was greatly surprised. However, I simply was not going to carry on. I got a glass of water and hid in the ladies' room. As one so often used to do. 

I was furious. Utterly furious. Irrationally furious. I felt like the rug had been pulled under my feet, and in more ways than one. "Why did men always used to lead?" asked a teacher rhetorically some time ago. "Sexism." But I don't believe that. I simply don't believe it. I think that for physical and psychological reasons most men are just better at "leading" than at "following" and most women are better at "following" men (or, to be frank, any taller or heavier partner) than leading them. Eventually I came back and watched small women push around big guys and although nobody looked abjectly miserable, the laughter was often a little too loud, a little too forced. I thought about those poor American ROTC cadets ordered to parade in red high-heeled shoes.

When the class came to an end, I was unsure what I should do. Stay for the social and dance? But that meant either standing on the edge of the dance floor, smiling, etc., or asking one of the least confident men to dance, and suddenly I knew I was just too angry. In that state, I could not fake happiness, and nobody would want to swing-dance with Mrs Angry. So I went home. Which, since, the Rough Bus route was closed off, took me an hour and a half. 

"Don't take it so personally," said B.A. after listening to my descriptions of forced gender-bender hell.  

"It's hard not to take it personally," consoled Alisha, via Facebook.  

Naturally Alisha Ruiss is my guide to all things swing, and the best thing I could do, since I realized that to go from loving swing-dancing to hating it in the space of ten minutes was a violent change, was to write to her. Apparently it is helpful to learn how to lead to become a better follower. And yet  it was perfectly normal to feel the way I was feeling.  You can feel happy about it all, and then there's one little thing you can't do, and you feel like a terrible dancer. 

Well, if Alisha can feel like that...! 

I'll tell you who else Alisha is. She is my heroine of  persistence. All her adult life she has gone to auditions, sometimes getting the part, but also sometimes being rejected. Again and again. And since I hate rejection and, if something I write gets rejected, fall into dejection, sometimes the only thought that gives me hope is Alisha, who looks at going to auditions as a large part of the job and takes rejections in stride. I am a born quitter--which is why I took an oath I would study Polish for five years before giving up--but I don't want to die one. 

Oh, and my new sneakers squeaked and squealed like giant mice. Terrible. What a night.