Yes You Really Can Do Exercises To Improve Your Non-Verbal Communicaiton Skills

A few years ago I wrote about a dance situation where I was sliding into a depressive state but putting on my best pretend-happy face (https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/387838.html).   I went out dancing and met up with 2 friends that night - one dancer and one non-dancer.

The non-dancer and I had been having some incredibly intimate conversations recently and we were getting to know each other *really* well.  He saw the effect that the endorphins had on me and thought I looked happy.  I was smiling, outgoing, and having one of my best dance-skill nights where I was totally killing it on the floor.   The non-dancer saw all of that and remarked on how happy I looked.

The dancer friend and I had not had that same level of intimacy and we only knew each other marginally well.  But after one 3 minute song of full-body contact, he could see the depression behind the smile and the dance endorphins.

So now I want to give another example of how partner dancing gives people amazingly good non-verbal communication skills.

In 2019, I started a casual relationship with another dancer.   We were becoming pretty good friends, but we still had some barriers up in the emotional intimacy department.   We were having fun, but that's about it.  But he's a fantastic lead and can build very good partnerships with his follows on the floor.   I'll call him Michael.

We had not told anyone in our dance communities that we had been sleeping together.   First of all, we weren't *dating*, so it felt weird to be making announcements about a casual relationship, but second, we are both community leaders and we didn't want to make things weird with overlapping our private and public lives.

Plus, he's ultimately monogamous and available for a dating relationship, so eventually he would want to find a romantic partner (probably from within the dance community) and having everyone already know that he's hooking up with someone else tends to make potential monogamous dating partners keep their distance.   He would, of course, disclose to anyone to whom that information is relevant, but it didn't need to be public knowledge.  Ah, the complex, twisty rules of mono culture.

I have another friend, who I'll call Anne, who is also a dancer.   She and I have a similar level of platonic emotional intimacy - decent friends but still getting to know each other.   Anne and Michael have their own friendship with each other, and it's possibly a closer emotional relationship than I had with either of them.

So, on this particular Wednesday night, I went to my usual dance event, and I met a guy there who was interested in using the venue.   The manager wasn't there that night, so he wandered over to my event to make connections.  So we chatted and I let him in on how our event was arranged and stuff.  I'll call him Nick.  I was feeling some chemistry between us, but I wasn't sure how much of that was real and how much was just because I had really good sex earlier in the day and I was still all after-glowey.

I found out that, in addition to Nick being a promoter, he's also a Latin dancer.  So I invited him up to my DJ booth to pick whatever song he wanted and to dance with me.  So we did and he's a fucking amazing dancer - one of the best I've ever danced with.

Earlier, he had given me his business card, offering to help me with promotion of our event.   It felt like a pretty typical networking type of exchange.  Later, while bent over my laptop looking at music (he also gave me a ton of his own music, so we were talking and exchanging files), he suggested I call him to get together and do more music exchange when we had time and more drive space, and he gave me his personal number.

Now, this could have gone either way.  It could have been more networking, or it could have been a soft flirt to see if there was interest.  I enthusiastically accepted his number, y'know, to exchange music.  Then we danced.  He said several times that he was impressed, given that I'm not a Latin dancer, I'm a Ballroom Latin dancer (which is different) and a beginner at that.

So I put on a bachata, which I like better than salsa, and we danced again.   Then he mentioned another style of dance that I might like and when I asked him what it was like, we danced again.  I was definitely feeling the chemistry.  After the 3rd dance, the conversation lulled, and I excused myself to mingle with my other guests and friends.   Here's the relevant part...

As I was walking across the rather large dance floor, apparently I was smiling.   Anne and Michael were standing next to each other, both watching me (everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch me dance with Nick just a moment before).   Michael remarked to Anne that I looked happy.

Anne, knowing that I often get trapped by men in uncomfortable conversations because a) I'm a woman at a nightclub and b) I'm the event host who has to make the rounds and talk to everyone, suggested the possibility that it might have been a tense smile.   Keep in mind that I'm still a good 50-60 feet away and it's dark with flashing, disorienting lights.

Michael, without taking his eyes off me, said "no, that's a happy look".   Apparently Anne glanced sharply at Michael as she realized that he was able to tell the difference between my happy smile and my pasted, polite but tense smile.   She looked at him, looked back at me, back at him, back at me, and on the third glance back at him (all of which I could see as I walked towards them), she asked him if we were sleeping together.

Surprised, he looked at her, admitted it, and then asked how she knew.  She said that the first clue was his knowing the difference between my smiles, and what confirmed it was the expression on his face as he watched me walk over to them and his relaxed posture, as well as my own body language while I walked towards them.

All of this happened in the span of time it took me to walk across the dance floor.  When I arrived, I told them all about who the guy was and mentioned that I got his number.   Michael said "see? Happy smile!"

So, here is someone I have been dancing with for months able to tell at a glance from across a *dark* room the difference between genuinely being excited about something and being polite to a new person and my general enthusiasm for the activity.   Because he is getting to know me very intimately through dancing.  The sex helps, but that's relatively new compared to how long we've been dancing together, and also sex is very contextual.   Dancing expresses a lot of different emotions, and we can feel that with the music and the body contact.  And here is someone else who I have *not* been dancing with but who has general non-verbal communication skills, and who *has* been dancing with the other person in this scenario so she knows *his* body language almost as intimately as I do.

He can read me, she can read him, and through our mutual connection with him and our general skills, she can infer my mental state too.  Kind of like the dance version of metamours. 

I know that a lot of people don't like dancing or think they're bad at it.  But I can't stress enough just how valuable those skills can be in interpersonal relationships. I've known some people who are just naturally that intuitive, but I don't know of any other activity that people can practice that develops this level of intuitiveness and awareness of other people.  This is an activity that can *teach* and *improve* exactly this kind of non-verbal communication and intuitiveness regardless of one's starting point in intuiting non-verbal communication.

I would like to encourage more people to try partner dancing, or at least to learn lead / follow exercises, to add one more *incredibly* powerful tool to their relationship toolkit.

Almost 100% Track Record Of Being Stood Up By Online Dates

So far every single match online who was even a slight possibility has failed my second test (the first one being "can you even read?" with my bio having specific terminology).

As a "single" woman, a poly person, and someone who prefers kitchen table poly in particular, I prefer to meet people for the first time in social settings.   I like meeting at parties and public events.  The other person can even bring their friends with them.   I realize this isn't common, but it's what I prefer to do.

This does several things - it keeps me safer from danger because I'm in a familiar setting with other people, it gives us both an "out" if we don't click.   They have people they can talk to, I have people I can talk to, someone in the group is bound to be That Person who can keep even a limping conversation going, one of us can always leave early because we're not really "ditching" someone if they're there anyway for the event itself, if the other person sucks, we can use our friends as a buffer, etc.

And finally, it shows me just how comfortable they are with the idea of polyamory, or even just with someone being sociable and outgoing and having their own friends.  I don't have a lot of free time, so I tend to combine activities so I can see the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time.

I also prefer for my partners to get along with each other, at least socially, if not become friends.  So I want to see how well these prospectives handle meeting my friends.   How well they handle me sharing or splitting my attention.  I am not a beginner relationship.  I throw people in the deep in right away because I don't have time or energy to teach them how to swim.

And I want my friends' opinions on the new guy because I don't trust rose colored glasses.   I don't need my friends' "approval", but I want some independent verification.  Plus, the social event is usually an activity that means a lot to me.   How accommodating is he of the things I'm passionate about?  How interested is he in the things I'm interested in?

I know that not everyone likes large social events, but that's a compatibility issue in its own right with me.   If they really hate social events that much, we're not going to get along long-term.  I also know that it's hard to have a more personal connection in these kinds of settings, but that's not what I'm looking for when I arrange them. I would have had to develop some kind of connection before even inviting them out. Now is the time for me to see if there is any real-life chemistry in a safe, controlled way.

And only then, if I don't instantly hate them on sight (something that happened to me when a guy I met online from out of town planned a week-long trip to meet me, which really sucked for both of us), I'll plan something more personal and intimate to get to know each other better.

And so far every single person (but 1) who has made it past the first test has failed this one.  Every single person I agreed to meet from an online dating app has said they'd meet me at some public event and then failed to show up.

So, guys, when a woman you're interested in says that she is passionate about this thing, and she would like to meet you in this context, don't fuck that up.  She is inviting you into her world in a way that gives her a feeling of control and safety.  When a woman you know invites you to a thing she is really interested in, don't fuck that up.  She is inviting you into her world, to share something with her that sparks joy in her life.

These are Bids For Attention.  When Bids For Attention go unacknowledged, people pull away.   When it happens enough times in proportion to the investment already made into the relationship, this will kill the relationship.

And for something that hasn't started yet, it really only takes once or twice.  So now even guys I was actually interested in meeting are now off the table for me.  They totally lost their chance by refusing (not being "unable", but *refusing*) to meet me under the circumstances I proposed.

Because it's not like I'm a passive communicator or someone who drops hints.  I've said outright that this is how I prefer to meet people and why.   Quickest way to kill any interest I might have in you is for you to ignore my Bids For Attention, to overlook my safety concerns, and to dismiss the things that I'm passionate about.

The Most Inappropriate Interaction I've Had At A Club

www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-inappropriate-interaction-you-have-had-at-a-club/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What is the most inappropriate interaction you have had at a club?

A. I've had 2 that I can come up with off the top of my head and they happened on the same night.

I was at a regular nightclub with some swing dancers, and towards the end of the night, everyone had left except for 2 guys I know.  They were off dancing with some non-dancers they had met.  I was approached by a guy who is not a dancer, but who was clearly drunk.  He asked me to dance.  He said that he saw me dancing earlier and knew that I was with a group of actual dancers, not your typical drunk club girl.

Now, partner dance etiquette is to accept dance requests, dance one song, thank your partner for the dance, and return to your place to dance with someone else.  You can dance with them again later, but you don't dance multiple songs in a row because you don't want to monopolize anyone's time.  I get that non-dancers are not aware of this, but I still do this even at nightclubs.

We danced one song and he was terrible.  He was sloppy drunk and unable to tell that his clumsy manhandling of me was wrenching my shoulder.  So I thanked him for the dance as soon as the song ended and I turned and went back to my spot.  He followed me, demanding to know why I had left him on the dance floor.  I told him about proper dance etiquette, and that he got his dance with me, now I was done.  He backed me into a corner to prevent me from leaving and started arguing with me about dancing more with him.

Right about when I was getting ready to pull out my knife to get him to back off, one of my 2 dancer friends left saw what was happening and rushed over to grab my hand and pull me on the floor.  The asshole shouted after me something about being a bitch for going to dance with someone else.

A couple of songs later, I got asked to dance by some other drunk guy.  I accepted, and he attempted to hold me like he had seen the real dancers holding me, but as usual, he had no clue how to do it right.  He held me way too close and his hands were way too low on my back.  I started leaning away from him and he started holding me tighter.  He tried to spin me in a clumsy spin, and when I came back from the spin, he grabbed me in a full-body embrace and kissed my neck.

I pushed him away and walked off the floor.  He grabbed my arm to pull me back, but the other dance guy who was still there saw me and dove between us, putting me into a proper dance hold and whisked me away.

This second asshole tried to cut in, but my dance friend yelled back at him that I was "his" and he wasn't letting me go again.  He quietly asked me how "friendly" he could be to make his point, and I gave him permission to be *very* friendly.  So he put his hands on my butt and kissed me.  Finally the asshole left.

I hate displays of possession, but the behaviour of these two jerks left us only 2 options - allow someone else to "claim" me so that they would respect my rejection, or escalate to violence.  I chose the non-violent response first, and fortunately I did not have to fall back on the violent one.