An argument for why dancing is better for you than swiping
Illustration by Sona Eidnani.
This year, I made a New Year’s resolution that, so far, has stuck: I went off dating apps. Not dating altogether, just the apps. I wanted to meet people “organically,” but I was (and still am) fine with the possibility of a year of romance-drought.
After revisiting a tradition from my childhood — contra dancing — I realized that social dancing has great potential for cultivating both flirtation and community. Whether you want to meet potential partners offline, or you have foregone romance altogether and are looking for activities to do with friends, I propose dancing.
My rationale? Dating apps are fine, but old-timey dancing is always more fun.
Romance, or lack thereof, is a common conversation topic in my circles. After telling a friend about my latest Hinge date, she said, “What is it with lesbians and going for coffee on dates? Going for coffee is the lesbian equivalent of wining and dining.” She has a point. Most dates I have been on were activities you’d do with a friend anyway, where you have to do conversational legwork to go from platonic to romantic. When you’re dancing, the activity does it for you.
Plus, I don’t want to text for days — or weeks — as often happens on dating apps, and risk getting attached to the idea of a person, rather than getting to know the person themself. When you’re dancing with a stranger, there’s less overthinking, less imagining, and more being in the moment.
Social dancing can easily be flirty — and historically, it has been. It’s like square dancing, but in a long line, so if someone messes up, it’s no big deal. You can quickly point someone where they need to go, and there’s no complex footwork. It’s customary to switch partners between dances, and many people come solo, but have no problem finding a partner.
Contra dates back to the 17th century, and is a blend of European country dances. From the balls depicted in Jane Austen’s works to rural Canada in the 1940s, social dances have been a way for young people to meet, socialize, and court. Though dancing is largely absent from young people’s culture today, I’ve noticed a yearning for the Bridgerton-esque idea of social dancing. Why not make it real?
However, social dancing doesn’t have to be flirty; I grew up contra dancing. My friends will attest — I’ve spent a lot of this year trying to drag them out to dance. Not to the club, mind you, but usually to some church hall rented out by a group of volunteers.
Let me set the scene. When you arrive, people are still setting up the chairs around the dance floor. The sound check is in progress, and the fiddle band is warming up. Maybe the “all-gender washroom” signs haven’t been put up yet. The lights are generally bright — bright enough to see the faces of the crowd, made up of people of all different ages.
When I was a kid, contra dancers were mostly middle-aged and grey-haired folks. The caller, who teaches the dances and cues the moves to the music, used to say “ladies” and “gentlemen,” even though women danced the “man’s” part all the time. Now, most of the time, it’s “larks” for left and “robins” for right.
This takes some adjustment for older dancers and callers, who have been doing this a long time, and have grown accustomed to “ladies and gents.” The change is worth it for me, though, as a nonbinary person.
These days, Victoria Contra Dance attracts UVic students and queer people, and puts on events catered to Victoria’s 2SLGBTQIA+ population. I’ve loved watching the reappropriation of what used to be a binary and heteronormative setting, and seeing it open up to new audiences.
Victoria’s dance community has been a “third space” for me — a location that isn’t home or work, where I can meet people and socialize — that reminds me of the small town where I grew up, because dancing is intergenerational in Victoria, too. Dancing in Victoria, for me, does exactly what third spaces are meant to do: it affirms my own identity, and builds empathy for people with different identities from my own.
In our pandemic-altered world, when we’ve all been through lockdowns, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is looking into loneliness as a worldwide health threat, community is something people of all ages desperately need. Dancing can help with this, too. Not only do our brains produce endorphins while dancing, as with any exercise, but group dancing breaks the touch barrier, which makes our brains produce oxytocin, the bonding hormone.
If you crave organic connections, if you like live music, if you want exercise and community all wrapped into one, or if you just want something to do on the weekend, I highly recommend dancing with a stranger — or rather, a soon-to-be friend, and maybe even more. Westcoast Barn Dances, Victoria Contra Dance, and Red Hot Swing are all fantastic dance organizers you can check out. Rather than doing legwork to get from platonic to romantic, dance and let your legwork be literal this summer.
