A "date" with John - at Fall for Dance!

Do you ever invite people you like to go out with you, in the evening? Even though you aren't sure if such an outing is technically a date or not? I do! It's fun! Knowing whether or not you're on a date is overrated, in my book.

Case in point: I took my new friend John to see "Fall for Dance" at the City Center, the annual, instantly-sold-out event that's been charming dance-loving New Yorkers for seven years now. I told my therapist earlier that day that, although I did not know whether it was a date or not, I would definitely know by the end of the night. That turned out to be true, and I knew sooner than I had anticipated. When I greeted John outside the City Center, he took me by the shoulders and immediately gave me a kiss - pointedly - on the cheek. "This is not a date," I immediately realized. Oh. The formality of his peck was not the only clue I had received, of course, over the last few weeks of our acquaintance, but being clueless about nonverbal communication is one of my many charms. We settled into our seats.

All throughout the performance, I got to work through - silently - my issues with space. As many people know, I have a strangely large "personal bubble," and don't really like casual touching as a rule. But the seats in the City Center were very close together, and John, as though trying to at least give me something for the tickets, engaged in some prolonged leaning-in and heavy rubbing of his shoulder against mine - practically frottage. Each time we touched, I held my breath and giggled on the inside. Hee hee!

One of the dancers from the Dresden Ballet had on a lime-green tutu with what looked like a small circular table attached, keeping her partner at arms length. "How I yearn to wear an outfit like that," I whispered dramatically to John. But not right at that second, of course. I wouldn't have wanted that outfit right then. For a middle-aged man at a dance performance in Manhattan's midtown, with the first tinge of fall in the air, sometimes a little rubbing is as good as it's going to get, and you sort of don't want anything to get in the way. Or, at least, so I've heard it said.