Alone time

I feel like I've pushed it too far. Every so often, I need to spend time alone, and I don't think I've been doing enough of that. I never learn the lesson, though. By now, I should know that, when I don't know how best to deal with the people around me, it's a sign that I just don't want to deal with them.

We're talking about a fundamental part of my nature, rather than any personal issue with individuals, although any existing issues will be warped and magnified by how I'm currently feeling. The feeling I had when I first started learning to dance, from being in such a crowded room, was a message from within.

I need time alone. Sometimes I forget that.

Bowing out

On Saturday, it's my favourite monthly dance event, and it feels like the right time to take a bow, thank everyone for the dances and leave the stage, as it were. Maybe I'll take photos with a few friends, for the sake of having a few good memories, but it feels like it's all coming to an end.

I can't honestly say that the break is definitely permanent, however. The conflicting feelings are between a love for dancing and a deep-seated contempt for some aspects of the scene and a number of the personalities within it.

Maybe, somewhere within, it's always troubled me that learning to dance was never really my decision. I accompanied a lady to that first Modern Jive class at her request, not because I particularly wanted to go. I actually felt that I wouldn't enjoy the whole thing, but I turned out to be wrong. Things started to go wrong almost immediately, though, in the way other dancers perceived our interactions.

One of the few friends I made during that time dared me to give Salsa classes a go. The deal was that I had to go for at least six weeks, and if I was to quit before then, the consequences would be humiliating. Obviously, I stayed much longer.

At this point, I don't feel that I have anything left to prove to myself. The old adage about teaching an old dog new tricks always got to me, and kept me there, when I sometimes wanted to give up or felt like I'd never get it. There's a piece on the internet somewhere, within which the author states that many male dancers give up, just as their rate of improvement is about to pick up.

It could be that I'm just feeling particularly low right now. Earlier in the week, I got to talk with someone who is partly responsible for my development in my work, about everything that's going on, and has gone on, to make me feel the way I'm feeling. The response I heard was that the people who have the level of inner strength I possess are few and far between. It was nice to hear that, but I think I'm tired of being strong. Maybe it's not about being strong any more: maybe I'm just tired.

It would be remiss of me to not point out something else, as I'm bowing out, taking a break, or whatever this turns out to be. A relatively new dancer asked if there was anything I could tell him about the dance scene. I said that he shouldn't listen to ladies who have never learned to lead, when they tell him during a lesson that he's doing something wrong. It sounds silly, but it happens far too often, and I've seen far too many men leave dancing behind because they wrongly believed that they were terrible dancers and would never get it right. A few of these ladies, I've observed, use this tactic to eject men from the scene who don't meet with their warped ideas of what they'd like a Salsa dancer to be.

For me, the issue is that I'm a sensitive soul. There's a social aspect to dancing, and for some, that's their focus. For some, there's a sense of competition with other dancers. I'm just there to feel the music, dance to it, and enjoy a few moments in the company of others who want the same. Anything I ever had to prove was to myself only. The sensitivity I spoke about comes across in the way I dance, but it's also why I need time out, and may extend that indefinitely.

A friend once spoke about what dancing does for me and, more specifically, about what side of me it connects with. As stated, dancing connects with the sensitive, emotional side of my personality. Connecting with a dance partner isn't always a comfortable feeling for someone so introverted, but it's something that someone this empathic and intuitive achieves without much effort. "You're a good lead," some say. "You're a great lead," fewer people say. Both have been said enough that I have to accept the premise of those statements, but I know from where that quality comes, and I have to question what it costs me to connect in that way with the music, with a dance partner, and with how it feels to dance.

At a dance event in January, I got to take part in a Yoga class. I felt great during and after the class, but especially after. I suppose that, internally, I was contrasting the way I felt after that class with the way I felt when I danced. Sometimes we get these messages from within. That weekend happened to be one where it felt like everything was crowding in on me. It was a weekend which led to me doubting the motives of someone I'd come to think of as a close friend. It was a weekend that changed the way I saw a number of things.

The normal reaction, when people hear that I dance, is laughter. Perhaps they know what should be staring me in the face - I'm not meant to be a dancer. I've decided to join a martial arts class again, to go in a direction in which life seemed to be pulling me for a long time, but I resisted. Our days, our weeks, months, years, and our lives have a flow, and it's my belief that our suffering is caused by resisting this flow. I'm a martial artist, first and foremost. That's what I am, and that's what I have to be.

Am I a dancer too? It doesn't feel that way right now. Some time ago, I had the idea that I had to be both. I practised martial arts for a long time, and somehow it seemed to help me deal with being this sensitive, emotional being. I took a break, and it's possible that I needed to do that, in order to see what being a martial artist really meant to me.

I have to accept that none of this may make sense to anyone reading it. I'm okay with that. I know that the event on Saturday could turn out to be such a positive experience that I hang in there for a while longer - that has happened a number of times before. It could be that I just need time out.

I'm a martial artist. I accept that as a part of who I am. Can I say that I'm a dancer? Is that still something I can accept as a part of who I am? We'll see. One thing is certain, however - it will be my decision.

Is it worth it?

There's a dance on tonight. The evening will start with a lesson in Bachata, and I love Bachata. The lesson is being taught by someone for whom I have a great deal of respect. All the proceeds of the evening will go to a worthy cause. I would be in the company of friends and...

I probably won't go.

If I go, it's a show of strength. A Bachata lesson means close contact with the ladies present, and one of those females (I can't use "lady" in her case) is someone with whom close contact feels like being smeared with faeces.

We were friends at one time. That was my first mistake. I told her that my sister was dying. That was mistake number two. There was an assumption that I would be in a vulnerable state, and my feelings could be manipulated. There was an assumption that, with my fiancée on the other side of the world, I'd be open to physical intimacy with another woman. That was HER first mistake, but one which would lead her to make a series of others.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and tried to fix things. This was more than a mistake - it was a fatal error. What this did was to make me appear weak, and give some legitimacy to her behaviour. Manipulation became coercion. The incessant compliments became accusations of fundamental character flaws. Drunken, abusive phone calls were made.

The point where it all came to a head was when, as I was trying one last time to make things right, I was accused of being controlling, manipulative and a narcissist. Recognising classic Freudian projection when I see it, and adding up the number of friends I'd lost in the time I'd known her, due to her manipulations and machinations, I knew that I had to pull the plug on this "friendship".

If you've dealt with a narcissist before, it won't surprise you to hear that, sensing trouble, she pulled the plug first.

The anger I feel about all of this - and, believe me, I've left out a lot - is largely directed at myself. I should never have become friends with her in the first place but, as that did happen, I should have pulled the plug sooner. I didn't do any of that and, as a result, my continued involvement with the dance scene is under threat.

The assertion that I was a great dancer, and would get better, was replaced by accusations that I was so bad that I was hurting her during lessons. In those lessons, she'd "instruct", stubbornly holding her limbs in the wrong positions so that she could tell me I was doing everything wrong and make further accusations of mistreatment. On the dance floor, she guided men to a space next to me and whoever I was dancing with, so that she could turn each turn, spin and flourish into a collision with me or my dance partner.

Off the dance floor, she had manipulated the people who ran the class into practically worshipping her and the entourage she had built by that time. From there, she targetted the few remaining friends I had, convincing them that I was a despicable human being.

In the end, I turned my back on Modern Jive. I wanted to learn Salsa but, knowing that she frequented the nearest class, I decided that one further from home might be a less hostile environment. I was there for over a year before she decided that it would become her regular class too - accusing me, in that first class, of hurting her again.

I thought that informing the people who ran the club of what had happened, and was continuing to happen, might change things. It didn't. Instead, it fell on deaf ears. I later heard that rumours were being spread, where I was the one at fault. As I've heard from many men within the scene, once the women start spreading rumours about you, those rumours are accepted as true, and you're essentially powerless.

A few members of the committee of that club, I discovered later, were actively involved in perpetuating the rumours. I left, due to the atmosphere becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

As an aside, the question about the smaller number of men in the dance community is often asked. Even as I started to learn Salsa, some of the ladies in the beginners' class were asked if they'd learn to lead - some of them did but, to my knowledge, none of them continued for very long. Still, I hear that "women just pick this stuff up more quickly than men."

Oh, you mean those women who have often learned to dance in some form from an early age? Those women? Do you mean the women who get to dance with leads of various abilities, while men are pretty much stuck with what they know at any given time? Isn't that the nature of a partner dance, where one leads and one follows? You mean the women who, from the start, are told that any mistakes are the responsibility of the lead? The women who move out of the beginners' class long before they have even mastered the basics, because they believe the rubbish they're told?

"I know the ladies were all perfect, but ladies, how did the men do?" - I've heard this one too. Imagine standing there, hearing that, while a lady with whom practising the moves felt like wrestling a bull pulls apart "some of the men" because she can't take ownership of her incompetence as a dancer. More than likely, she was one of the ladies who thought that focusing on the basics was unnecessarily holding her back.

Other men have spoken to me about this. One - a dancer of many years - said that a number of the women joining dance classes now feel a sense of competitiveness against the other lady dancers that is stronger than it was before. It has always existed, apparently, but the extent to which he sees it in a number of the new dancers is, for him, an unwelcome development. He concluded that this was at the root of many of the issues that are starting to plague the scene, and that he may soon give up something he's loved for a long time because of the unpleasant atmosphere that accompanies this competitiveness.

I got sidetracked, but all of this adds to what I said about my nemesis within the dance community, and the people she has managed to co-opt into her scheme to eject me. I don't doubt that, if I were to leave, she would continue to attack, and possibly be further encouraged by her success to do so. Messages that were sent by her to someone I love left me in no doubt about any of that.

So, if I go, I'm going into an environment that is largely hostile - so many people from my former club, where the bully took root and successfully ejected me, will be there. A number of them were actively involved in helping the bully, or at least making her feel welcome enough to push forward with her plan. She'll be there too, and a Bachata class involves close contact with the ladies present.

If I don't go, it's simply an acknowledgement that I may not be able to sufficiently push down my anger.

I drive a little further for Salsa lessons now. The standard of instruction is orders of magnitude greater. I'd like to say that's not a shot fired against a club that screwed me over when I asked them for help - a club which enabled a serial bully who is now, as I have heard and seen for myself, "instructing" any man who is relatively new to the scene and doesn't meet with her vision of how she'd like the scene to be. I have to be honest with myself, and admit that I take great pleasure in being able to honestly say that I'm getting better instruction. That's my victory against the bully, and I'm taking it.

Compassion through acceptance

A great Buddhist teacher said that we can feel compassion for others through understanding. Compassion for those who have wronged us, he continued, can be achieved by understanding that the other person suffers too.

I don't consider myself to have any particular wisdom, but it strikes me that the aim is acceptance, possibly without first understanding. How can we truly understand another? We're subject to our own frame of reference, and see others through the lens of our experience. We project the things we find unacceptable in ourselves onto others, and see them as failings of that person's character. We transfer feelings we had for someone in our past onto someone in our present, simply because they are in some way similar.

Our understanding of others is limited, especially when we make assumptions rather than asking the questions which might correct our initial impression. Yes, we can achieve some level of understanding through putting aside our preconceived notions of who that person may be, but there's a point where we have to accept what we don't understand.

The inability to accept what we don't understand has real consequences. It troubles me to hear the way in which people from other lands are described by our print and broadcast media, and discussed on various platforms on the internet. I see fear, hatred and anger, rather than the compassion that our Buddhist friend rightly advocates.

How fully can we understand the experience of someone from another land, another culture, with values, beliefs and attitudes which may vary greatly from our own? Our understanding is likely to be limited, so we may ask them about their experience, their way of seeing the world around them. How likely are they to be open, though, if we don't first offer acceptance? How likely are we to listen, if we don't first offer acceptance?

Mold

I'm glad that I went to Theatr Clwyd (not a typing error - it's the Welsh spelling). It took more courage than usual to get me into the place, but one thing I've started to recognise is that I don't lack courage. I'm glad I was there, because it stripped away any illusion that I have friends within the Salsa community.

At another table, the group who were trying to eject me from the dance scene were enjoying their popularity, as bullies often do. I'd gone there with the intention of showing no reaction to this, because I'm old enough to know how these things work, and for once I also had an agenda that was separate from just being there to dance. I wanted to confirm things I'd long suspected.

I watched as ladies who knew about the bullying, and who was responsible, spent a lot of time in friendly conversation with the bullies, while I sat alone for most of my time there. I reflected that they were part of the problem, and had been responsible in no small way for the ease with which I'd been ejected from what was once my regular Salsa class. These same ladies later asked me to dance - some of them intercepting me on the dance floor before I was able to get back to my seat. I counted seven dances without a break, most of them to faster tracks, before I stopped counting.

You'd think it would be good to be so popular. You'd think it would be appreciated. My legs disagreed with that sentiment: after a while, they stopped working correctly. The requests for dances reduced in number, because I was no longer useful. This changed when I got up to leave. Twice I put on my jacket, and twice I removed it, as ladies asked me for one more dance.

Again, you'd think I'd be flattered. You'd think it would reinforce that thing which is said so often about me being a good lead. No. None of the above. Even now, I can't shake the feeling that it was no longer about dancing with me. Remember, the requests for dances had reduced in number, until I wanted to leave.

It was about control.

I'm not in the habit of refusing dances. It's not in my nature. I also know what it's like to be refused a dance, and it's an awful feeling. On this particular Saturday evening, however, this firmly held principle became a medium for self-sacrifice. So, I now see accepting or refusing a dance as a boundary issue. I still hope that I don't feel the need to refuse a dance, but it's no longer a given that I'll accept.

Actually, Mold reminded me of the realities of being a man in the dance scene. I'm not the first man about whom rumours have been spread within the community but, like all those others, there's nothing I can do about it. If you're a man, and a woman is saying that you're a despicable human being, then you are, simply because you're a man and she's a woman. You will get asked to dance, if you're any good, but you have no worth other than that.

There's likely to be a time where I grow so tired of it all that I leave it behind me. I've been there a number of times already, but I'm stubborn enough to tell myself that no one's ejecting me from the scene, forcing me to give up doing something I love.

Enabling the bully, and then stopping me taking a break from dancing until I'm exhausted? That feels like abuse.

Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe the dark place in which I'm currently residing, mentally and emotionally, is affecting my view of things. The alternative is that I'm just seeing things how they are, and going to Theatr Clwyd removed the blind spots. Maybe I need to take a break, or I'll start to feel enough contempt for the scene that I'll leave and never come back.

Thought for the day - devaluing ourselves

When we devalue ourselves, we make it so much easier for others to do the same.

There are times when we find ourselves vulnerable, either due to sustained emotional distress from external factors or, more commonly, through neglecting some aspect of our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual health. The mention of the last of those often provokes much eye-rolling, as it is linked by so many to the notion of religious belief. Some express their spirituality within a religious tradition, but to me it seems to be something bigger than, and often separate from, those traditions.

The point I'm trying to make is that we often devalue ourselves by neglecting ourselves, and then we search for something that has always been within us by finding fragments of it within other people. When they also devalue us, we question our own worth. We might be better employed asking ourselves what is really missing, and where we might find it.

Maybe we search for kindness and compassion, and desperately cling to any sign that we are receiving these things. Maybe we do this because we haven't been offering these things to ourselves. Maybe we give freely of ourselves, to people who give just enough back to ensure that we keep giving. What clearer example could there be that we are failing to see our own value?

There's little more to say. If we feel that our relationship with others is unequal, and very much to our detriment, then maybe we invited a lack of respect by first refusing to acknowledge our value, or the value of our time and presence. If we don't see what these are worth, how do we expect others to see it?

I'll leave you with a thought about depression, and it comes from my own experience of the illness. Some of us continue to give a whole lot of love to the world, but direct a whole lot of anger and loathing towards ourselves. The effects of this imbalance are catastrophic, and the truth is that our anger would be more usefully directed towards another target, whereas our love and compassion would be more usefully directed toward ourselves.

You're worth something. You have value. You deserve love and compassion. Please remember that.

There is only perception

I exist in the light,
and in the darkness too.
There is beauty in the world,
but also things that are ugly,
and yet there is nothing.
There is only perception of these things.

I carry anger, and I carry peace.
I am the quiet one sat in the corner,
but inside I scream at the volume
of a thousand claps of thunder.
Beneath a dispassionate indifference
is a great passion.

Beneath my mistrust
is a need to place my trust in someone.
There's a fire burning within,
but the surface is much calmer and cooler
than the raging inferno.
There is only perception of these things.

T.R.G.