Lonely People Dancing

I went to a dance event. It was in an old house, with a general eighteen-century air, and a big saloon. The event was a folk dance. I have been going to class of it lately, but I will say more about it in other posts. The event was, quite unexpectedly, full. There were maybe 60 people. Live music, by fair musicians in middle-age costumes. The violinist had her baby on the back while she was playing. All very pictoresque. As the music went on, the master of the dance would explain the next dance. He would then pick someone to dance with, while explaining the steps. We would then all dance, and generally by the time you had a fair understanding on how you were supposed to move, the dance was over. Like life.

The teacher would always pick a woman, and nearly always the same one. An old women, very large in size, with a big red nose, and big red cheeks, that seemed to speak for her love for wine, beer or alcohol in general. Her clothes were equally uncared. If you met her in the middle of the street you would probably have confused her for a bum. Over there would just suspect her to be a homeless. She knew all the steps. She could follow them, and was the perfect partner for the teacher. All this made me think quite a bit:

In another society a person like her would not be alone. In another society she would meet everybody in the Plaza (or however they would call the central square), and speak with them. This dance event here is fairly rare. Maybe once a month, always in a different town of the countryside. But in such a society people might dance more often. Might meet more often. In such a society, being alone would be harder, just because the community would be small enough that everybody would know everybody else. Like in a small town. In fact the society I am thinking of, would be a small town, or a village. Of course there is a downsize of all this: as the society would be smaller, not only everybody would know everybody else, but would also know everybody else personal story. We are now protected by a sort of anonimity. The butcher does not know that you have been dating the baker. But there it would not hold. Like in a Go game you would have to live with your errors.

I think there is a good size for societies. You might have noticed how most people who study at the university, eventually marry someone from the university. I think there was even a statistical study made on this, money down the drain! It is not just that the period in which we go to the university is a hormons-raging period. It is also that often univesities approach this good size. Universities are diverse enough to give you a choise on who you might want to date, and who to avoid. Wide enough to give you some sort of anonimity that protects you during your first clumsy tentative (and the worse ones, later), but also (and this is where the trick lies) small enough that you keep on meeting again and again the same people. The girl you made a move on will be there again. She might have thought you were interesting. But if you kept faith to the idea of being “wonderful and gone“, you will miss her. Unless the social constraints (going to the same course, for example), make your paths meet again, and again, and again. And as this is true for dating, it is also true for general relationship building. We need good size societies, and many dance events!

I remember going to a shop in my hometown. The man who was selling them to me, spent much time with a costumer, an old woman. When she left he explained to me: “you never know, I might be the only person she speaks to in the whole day“.

So, I was looking at this old woman dancing, and I was thinking how she too had a life, a past. Did she had relationships? Does she still have them? And new ones? Friends? Did she felt she had a future? How important was this event for her?

How important would have been for her to live in a place where events like this happened more often?

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