Dance and Romance, Part Two: Making Connections

Ballroom dancing provides an amazing opportunity for people to meet, mingle and flirt with each other. But that doesn't mean you can just start tossing out one-liners in the middle of a dance.

Much as I know you want to skip to the steamy stuff, we first have to know how to make a great first impression with our future sweetheart:

To summarize, the main points to remember are:

  1. Join a group class! It's the easiest way to start meeting potential partners, especially since they're at your level and you'll be seeing them regularly.
  2. Nobody judges us harder than we judge ourselves. Knowing and accepting that helps take our mind off needing to prove ourselves, so we can just be natural.
  3. Save conversation for before or after the dance or group class. Dancing is why most people are there after all, and it's a MAJOR turnoff if you look like you just want to pick up.
  4. Ask questions, and listen to the answers - people love it when the spotlight is on them.
  5. It's not a date (necessarily) if you invite someone out for a coffee after a class or social - people can get comfortable with you pretty quickly after dancing a while, and an evening drink can be as much in friendship as anything else.
  6. Remember their name! I know it sucks, but there's some tips to help you - like repeating it, rhyming it with another word, or connecting it to imagery.
  7. Watch for positive or negative body language: open body posture facing towards you with direct eye contact is a good sign, while turned away or closed body position with wandering eyes are red flags.
  8. Don't put all your hopes on one person. The more connections you make, the less painful it is if one of them doesn't work out.

Of course, all the tips above are great if you just want to make friends as well (and isn't that just a bonus?) Next time, we'll explore how to tell if someone might be interested in more than friendship - and how to respond.

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