The Art of Dancing with Strangers

I walk into a bar in the Lower East Side, right before numbered streets turn into Houston. I feel restless, wanting a drink or conversation. I’m tired of pacing the streets and smoking cigarettes by myself. I want to share a few words over smoky air or in a room that is a little too loud. The restaurant, the name? I’m not sure, but It’s warm and beaming from across the streets, the light projected through orange peel colored shades. Small tables with wobbly stools scatter the room. Everyone is packed in like sardines, but it’s cute, chic. Maybe that’s why the line is so long. 

But I walk past it, and head straight to the bar, plop on a red leather stool with loopholed legs. The liquor shelf is lit from the back, making light sparkle on the glass rims, twinkling in my eyes. I order a glass of wine, maybe? A gin and tonic? That part isn’t important. 

I sit, fidgeting with my glass and tearing my napkin into little bits, pretending I’m not listening to the conversation next to me, or to the one over there, or the couple behind me making face. I watch the bartender shake drinks, wipe down glasses, check in with me and pour me some water. You want another one? Oh, why not! I guess I’m waiting for something to happen. For someone to make conversation. But who goes to a bar, alone, wanting to make conversation? Desperate people? Losers? Someone who’s lonely? I fit into one of those categories, I’ll let you guess which. 

This is what I’ll often do, though. I have found power in taking myself out, I even get a thrill from it. To lunch or to dinner, or when I’m feeling more social, to a bar or a club. I’ll take myself out dancing every couple weeks and see who I meet; let the night lead me. There is an almost indescribable feeling of freedom I get from this, the way I can move through a crowd with as much or as little anonymity as I’d like. I can talk to an interesting face, dance with lingering eyes, and leave locking lips. Or just walk myself home when I’m ready, feeling a weightless independence.  

This night, in this restaurant whose name I’ve lost, is one of those nights where I want to bathe myself in anonymity. Where I meet someone, talk for hours, and never see them again. And that’s exactly what happened. An older gentleman, of course, begins to chat with me. He sees I am reading some papers for a class, but he asks if I am a teacher. So I go with it. A teacher, yes, for a writing class. Yes, that can work. We talk through the night about literature and journalism. He happens to be obsessed with the JFK assassination, which took place in my hometown, Dallas. It’s little coincidences like this, cosmic meetings, that make me go out by myself. 

The night is coming to a close, he pays for my mussels and fries and my three glasses of, let’s say wine, and I thank him with a spliff we share from my back pocket. This all ends with him making some uncomfortable comments and me rushing out. But I leave with a full belly and a good conversation. I’ll take that any day.

Here, in New York City, I can be whomever I want to be. I can walk down the street with a certain beat to my steps. With a scowl or a grin. I can make conversation while waiting for the light to turn, or blast music through big headphones and keep shades on to hide a stare. Here, I can move through city streets slickly, morph how I like, and be anyone. A woman, a teacher. A lover. A beast, a prude, an extrovert, or an introvert. I can be an enigma or someone who lays all their cards out for the world to see. 

If I can be anybody, then I can meet anyone. And there is nothing I love more than meeting new people. 

It can be exciting, observing people and knowing exactly who they are to one another and the meaning behind their meeting. I see a couple arguing over dinner plans, the frustration in their jagged gestures. Or old friends catching up after a long time, an awkward tensity dousing their small talk. Bodies are a book of indicators, all to be read differently. And strangers always have a story to tell.

The best place to watch these small scenes is on the subway. I’ll often choose between train cars depending on who’s inside. Who looks like they have a story on their face. Last night, I drowsily plopped on the train across from a handsome couple. The dark haired guy wore heavy woolen layers and big circular glasses resting on his stubby nose. The girl choked in a gray turtleneck, had softened features all in the middle of her face, making a rounded and tight collection of expressions. She scratched and rubbed his hand with her long red nails. They were warm in their touch of one another. They cradled each other. They whispered and giggled. They looked like the only two people in the world and they probably felt that way too. They were young and sweetly in love.

People are easy to read when you watch them closely, when they think no one else can see them. 

Another one of my restless nights takes me out dancing, to a club, the name I can’t remember. The first half of the night consists of me dancing alone and water breaks while making conversation with the bartender. Slow night? I ask. Yea, I mean it’s a Wednesday night. Oh, right. Who goes out on a Wednesday night? Someone who loves to dance? A 20 something? A lonely person looking for connection? I fit into all three of those categories. 

Maybe that’s what brings me out, a craving for connection in a bouncing, chaotic, and vibrating night. And so that’s what I found. This night ended in me tagging along with a group of newly made friends. Bar hopping till late, and then later than that at someone’s apartment named Caroline, who I’d met from across the pool table, and we went to hers and played guitar and sang songs and read and smoked weed and drank tea and watched the sunrise on the roof while she played the violin and everyone's faces looked strange in daylight, until it was 9 in the morning and that’s how the night felt; one long run on sentence. And I left having had good conversations. I’ll take that any day.