New Year's Eve Party at Club Salsa

December 31, 2005

An ongoing plague at work involving great number of deaths over last few weeks kept me from getting to the Club Salsa New Year's Eve party until around 11 PM. At this point I'm not sure how many more lives will be lost before it ends - it is inconceivable that all will perish but my best guess will be that 1/3 to 1/2 of all adults will be gone before it all ends.

I don't recall ever having been at a New Year's Eve Party with so many people. Probably my last big New Year's Eve Party was in '97 or '98. I think I liked this year's party better - this felt more festive with better dancing, singing and toasting. Dancing of course is de rigueur at Club Salsa. Singing (karaoke style) is somewhat unusual - I think this was the second time ever at Club Salsa.

I ended up talking a lot more than I am accustomed to with several people tonight on many topics. In a brief exchange, I was asked when my next party will be (answer: probably February for a Tony & Claudia encore). In another I was introduced to a new person as a 'safe dancer', which was amusing because I had used the same phrase to describe couple of dancers in Cambridge several months ago. I have no idea if the word had same meaning both times.

I tried a different approach to dancing (or more accurately selecting dance partners) than the usual approach I take at Club Salsa. I think it worked out pretty well for me; it allowed me to get in rhythm quickly and improvise some untried ideas without too much mayhem. Because of combination of late start, many odd interruptions and a lot of talking, I ended up dancing with only 8 people - a very small number especially considering the nature of the event tonight.

I also became more aware at conscious level of the fact that the way your dance partner responds to your dancing can have a great deal of effect on next. I prefer to dance with someone who looks happy to be dancing with me. It feels great when someone compliments the way I dance. It’s even better when my dance partner appears thrilled by something I just did on the dance floor. People who are generous about showing their pleasure are more likely to be sought out as dance partners because they will seem more approachable. This is applicable to both men and women, and I suspect many people would agree with what I am saying here.

Taking a slightly cynical or gamesman-like approach, one might ask whether it might be useful to “fake” happiness. My take is that faking enjoyment at least to some degree does not hurt even with not-so-good dance or when dancing with a beginner (that beginner may become very good very quickly). Such generosity will leave a positive impression upon your dance partner (and possibly other onlookers). A positive first impression can last a long time, and it is difficult to fix a bad reputation. Also, acting happy could lead to actually being happy. On the other hand, complimenting someone whom you are not interested in dancing with later in the evening is more problematic (some people might consider this a good thing at least until the novelty wears off … if you already established a positive rapport with the other person, a repeat dance (bigger issue for followers than leaders generally) could be declined gently without causing offence … insincere compliment could become problematic in the long run if you are not interested in having at least one dance a night or so with the other person). By the way, it matters little whether you are happy or pleased; the key here is to convey this fact to the other person effectively. I add that a great skill to have is to be able to modulate your level of perceived happiness. Using similar line of reasoning, it's probably not a good idea to criticize or give advice unless you are willing to be not asked again or you have established credibility first AND you are able to give advice or criticism in a very tactful way OR unless you are in immediate danger of getting injured (I hate saying this because it is difficult to correct techniques without proper feedback and because I find it difficult to obtain a useful feedback from my dance partners).

One of the conversations I had tonight became an extended discussion of things I wrote in this blog. It was interesting to discuss various observations I had made and hearing different perspective, interpretation or take of topics I raised in my blog. It also reminded me of a prediction that the blog may become quite influential and the accompanying advice that I should be careful of what I write. At this point, this blog is an open secret - it's not advertised anywhere but it could be found fairly easily if people decided to look for it and its presence has been spread mostly through word-of-mouth. It would seem that at least for some people (and who knows how many there are?) this blog defines me. I guess that is a fact of life for placing things in the internet - it's not difficult to find all sorts of information on people with a little bit of know-how, especially for people with an unusual name.

By the way, I had a great time.