Square Dance Etiquette Question

[bjarvis]

A relatively new square dancer asked me the following question tonight:
How do you politely deal with someone who wishes to be your dance partner but makes you exceedingly uncomfortable?

I suggested pre-emptively ensuring you have a partner already arranged for the upcoming tip but this ducks the issue rather than dealing with it. Likewise choosing to sit out a tip rather than dance with the objectionable party is inadequate: one shouldn't have to sacrifice one's own participation in an event just because of one individual.

Thoughts?

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I think "sociopath" is a little over-the-top, and it polarises the responses. Sure there are some icky people that you'd rather not dance with. If your group is afflicted with one, and you rilly don't want to dance with him, then you're obliged to ensure that your own dancecard is pre-filled. Given enough declines, the undesired person will get the hint and not show up.

It also depends on what you mean by "grabbing me for a dance" -- if you mean physically grabbing your shoulder, you can lift the offending hand off and say in frosty manner "please don't do that" and walk away - you don't have to answer the "do ya wanna dance" question.

You are not helpless on the couch, unlike the ladies of Jane Austen's day, waiting to be picked off by nice men or nasty. Fill your own dancecard in advance and you won't have the problem.

biting the bullet and dancing with such a person is also bad: it also rewards their obsession and/or bad behaviour

how is this any different from other people accepting your invitations to dance? I'm not saying that you're obsessed or behave badly, I'm saying that the loaded words in your sentence don't help assess the situation with Undesired Dancer AB. A simple "no thank you" is the phrase you need.

Etiquette is a guide of practices for getting along in a suitable way with other people -- Agreed.

It strikes me as a violation of the basic principle to say that I'm not allowed to dance with ANYONE if I refuse to dance with one particular person -- WHAT basic principle? Being polite to everyone? If you snub someone -- and declining to dance with AB, for reasons other than "I've already promised this dance to CD", and subsequently accepting an invitation to dance from EF is a snub -- then you're not being polite to everyone, or in your phrase "getting along in a suitable way with other people". You don't have to sit out for the entire evening, you just have to sit out one dance. Use that time to line someone up for the tip after that. The best defence is to arrange your dances before AB heaves up over the horizon. And if enough people do that, then AB won't have opportunity to destroy an entire club.

And if you do dance with him once, you could certainly decline subsequent dances with "we've danced already this evening".