Learning to Cha Cha I

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‘My life has been a failure’.

Uttered my father, the morning after my mother definitively called time on their marriage. He hadn't slept all night, and I never knew him to lose sleep over anything; not over the stress of running his own business, of taking business-related financial gambles that could have ruined him, and certainly not over people and their many and varied foibles. It was gutting to hear this expression of despair from him back then. Lately I’m finding these words haunt me, only now the life in question is my own.

It could have something to do with the hangover, but today I’m feeling suicidal. Standing on platform 6 at Wynyard station, waiting for the train to Circular Quay I feel the rush of air being pushed through the tunnel by the oncoming train. How many times have I thought about jumping? Why has this feeling returned?

Theres a sorrow within me and I don’t know if it will ever be soothed; I’ve struggled with it for dozens of years. I sensed that I was living an unconscious and unenlightened life, so I took steps to address this. The outcome has been greater self-awareness, but more acute pain - at seeing all that is unconscious and unenlightened about me. So I drink. Its not terribly evolved.

All around are fake people living their fake happy lives. Times like this I’m a seething mass of hatred and sadness. All I wanted was to be authentic. How terrific - and hows that going for you? What is this mess of a human being?

Isolation and detachment. This is where I exist, but its the opposite of what I want. I might be wired up a little different, but I'm human; I crave intimacy and connection.  To live without this, its like living without air. I’m tired; exhausted, and I don't know what to believe in. 

Not love. There are types of love that I believe in, but romantic love is something I've personally failed at. In my experience its a lame, flakey concept, a mythical beast that hasn't shown up to the party, not even in fancy-dress. Post-modern love is just like everything else today; disposable. We talk ourselves into it, get bored, talk ourselves out of it. I wish I didn’t think this. I work in a restaurant as a professional eavesdropper; in all my accumulated time there I observed a lot of boredom, tolerance, passive-aggression and a surprising lack of closeness and affection. I wish I didn't feel this.

I’m aware that what I’m saying is perhaps a product of where I’m at. Given this embarrassing confusion, this lamentable state of misery, what's the best course of action? Tell me, good reader why I shouldn’t cease to exist. Because finding the will to carry on only gets harder. Reinventing yourself and reimagining the world requires creativity and faith, and faith abandoned me long ago.

So what are you going to do?

I’m going to learn to Cha Cha. 

I had a very disappointing encounter with a goat cheese tart the other day. Now, I’m not blaming Adriano for this; I believe that young-mate in the shop may have given me the wrong item by mistake. Who in their right mind would put bacon in a goat cheese tart? Besides, I’m certain that a sample analysis would prove that goat’s cheese was not a constituent in this particular concoction.

As I consume what I suspect is a Quiche Lorraine, I have a little Proust moment, where I recall the wobbly excitement of biting into my first goat cheese tart from a little baker working out of a shed in a cobbled laneway just off Lygon St Melbourne. La Parisienne Pâtés have since moved into shiny new premises on Lygon St proper, but their tarte au chèvre have remained startlingly good.

Over the coming days, I find I can't let this incident go. On my next day off I lie awake in bed thinking about La Parisienne Pâtés. Its so simple. Why can’t I get one here in Sydney? Will they post some up for me?

I get onto their website. They claim to be stocked in cafes, delis and gourmet stores throughout Australia. Hope rises. I can't locate a list of stockists. Hopes are dashed. I stare accusingly at my Kitchen Aid, poised frozen and inactive atop my kitchen bench - a symbol of intentions that never came to fruition. A kitchen as home’s heart; expressing adoration for others through cooking. There is nobody to cook for, the heart shrivels.

Oh fuck this. I’m going to cook it myself.

‘Here, what special dish do you like to cook?’ I open my mouth to speak but I’m spoken over. She's breathlessly awaiting another moment to talk about herself. ‘Mines baked-beans on toast!’. People with nothing to say usually speak loudest.

I try to be open minded, but I have a few not-negotiables. One of them is food; if you don’t respect it, I don’t respect you.

We’ve been friends for a couple of years, but lately I’m wondering why. There’s more to it than that. Immaturity has a shelf-life; the use-by date on this one is way over.

Drugs? I’m an animal. I’ll do anything. Let me at it - I’ll crush it, snort it, shelve it. I’m up for anything. I need to sleep with ‘x’ in order to get over ‘y’. Thats how I roll, I’m outta control. I’d love to know what a therapist has to say about me. I’d love to know what a psychiatrist would say about me.

I could tell you what mine’s said, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t like it.

Donna Hay. All this soft baby-blue makes me feel as though I’m looking at life through a laudanum-induced haze. In her defence, she’s the only one I’ve googled that doesn’t insist I should be putting caramelised onions into the tart. Fortunately, a Pampas shortcut is available for the shortcrust, so after 25 minutes in the oven my tart au chèvre is ready.

Its not bad - not as good as La Parisienne, but better than Adriano. It’s a welcome surprise that something so tasty is so easy to make. Its also welcome to note that mental obsession and various neurosis can be channelled into creativity and fruitfulness.

INGREDIENTS

STORE-BOUGHT SHORTCRUST PASTRY

125g SOIGNON GOAT’S CHEESE 

3 EGGS

¾ CUP (180ML) POURING CREAM 

1 TABLESPOON CHOPPED CHIVES 

½ CUP (20G) FINELY GRATED PARMESAN

SEA SALT AND CRACKED BLACK PEPPER

METHOD

1 Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F). Cut each pastry sheet into 4 squares. Line lightly greased fluted tart tin with pastry. Trim excess pastry and lightly prick bases with fork. 

2 Crumble goat’s cheese into pastry shell. 

3 Place eggs, cream, chives, parmesan, salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk until well combined. Pour into cases and bake for 25 minutes or until puffed and set. Cool to room temperature and serve. 

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay.

Half-read books, half-watched movies. Half-eaten pizza. A life half-lived.

‘Dance can heal your life’.

That moment when your belly-dance teacher overshares. The studio is full of first-year female uni-students. And me. I’m reasonably sure that none of them need to change their lives in that way. But I’m picking up what she's putting down.

‘You all look a little confused. Thats OK. People don’t like feeling confused. People end relationships because they’re confused. I’m telling you its OK to be confused.’

Another dance instructor. I’m taking a class some years later and the oversharing bristles with familiarity. I’m not enjoying the class but I’m grateful for the acceptance.

As an adult with no dance background, the first hurdle is to find your dance. I’ve had enough of moving like a self-aware white person. But belly-dance was not a good place to start. Neither was burlesque, which assumed prior knowledge and lots of sass. My reserves of sass are at an all-time low. Nor was modern, which had a studio of mixed bodies of various abilities wriggling across a floor in a poor attempt at free-form expression. I need structure. And discipline.

‘It can be very addictive’ Kate, the lady on the phone had an easy-going manner, and said everything I wanted to hear. Will it heal my life? Probably not; thats setting the barre too high.

Its roughly six months after I’ve spoken to Kate that I find myself walking down an inner-city laneway, dusty from construction at a nearby building site. I arrive at The School; doorway, doormat and a set of stairs. Please wipe your feet. Ascending the stair I arrive at a landing before two large framed black-and-white photographs; Baryshnikov nailing Le Jeune Homme et la Morte, and the other, an elegant older couple, wooden and stagey, Circa 1940 with a signature scribbled across the print. I peer down the corridor and see what looks like a bar, with coloured strip LED lighting. Beyond this the room opens out to a dance floor. Something about it reminds me of Palms on Oxford. I enter.

Turns out the bar is reception and theres no alcohol in sight, but Kate is there and so is Chris, the manager of the school. His quick acerbic wit and no bullshit approach remind me of a former colleague, which puts me at ease, turning down the volume on my hyper self-consciousness.

‘Whats your background?’

‘Italian / Irish.’

‘Jesus! I wouldn’t want to piss you off. Or have a drinking contest with you.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Hospitality. Aspiring travel writer.’ Not comfortable with the concept of ‘The Perfect Job Title’, still feeling unworthy, I add ‘Its a job that seems too good to be true.’

Chris regards me squarely. ‘You know, the older I get, the more I just think: screw it! It may be too good to be true, but it may not be. Just do it.’

Chris leads me onto the dance floor. ‘Right, I want to see how you move. We’re going to start with Foxtrot. This will get you moving around the room.’ We proceed; there are other dancers on the floor, and as we approach Chris elbows them out of the way.

‘Now, Waltz. This should look like we’re floating. Its all about posture.’ (to me) ‘Faster!’ (barking at the other teachers)

‘Next; Rhumba. Here you’ll find the Cuban rhythms. This dance will get you to loosen up. This, and Cha Cha.'

‘OK, lets sit down and have a chat.’

We walk to the back of the room to a large desk under a wall of windows which look down to the street. Chris pulls a chair out for me and begins his assessment.

‘You picked it up really quickly. You got what I was saying. I’m not just saying that to be nice; your timing is great. The main thing is you need to learn to follow. In ballroom dancing, its essential that the man leads and the woman follows. So for your homework, I want you to practice being submissive to all the men in your life!’

Deliberately outrageous, I relish the flamboyance, despite being at-odds with the concept.

At this point, a young lady has approached the desk. Compact, classic Latina, with a 200-watt smile, Chris projects beyond me. ‘Amanda, this is Natasha, our newest student. I’ve given her to Cruz.’

‘Aah, Cruz, the crazy one!’ She replies, her little face alight. ‘Good luck!’

I’m sitting in the park before my first lesson, contemplating in what manner my instructor’s craziness might manifest, when I receive a text message from Richard. And I’m going to leave things here Natasha. While I really enjoyed meeting you I think we’re looking for different things. All the very best.

What a relief. Richard, as his name suggests, seemed like a bit of a dick. Another one. This city isn’t currently offering much in the way of quality single men.

Down the alley, the backs of buildings and rows of rubbish bins, chefs and office workers out for a smoke. I’m a little nervous, resisting the temptation to turn around, walk in the opposite direction and drop the whole silly idea. But I push through and ascend the stair, entering the room which today is lively and busy with people and music. Chris greets me. Cynical-me notes that the staff are subtly rather good at accomodating apprehensive new students. He introduces me to my instructor.

Cruz: something about him reminds me of Prince Rogers Nelson, only taller and less androgynous. He moves with absolute surety; graceful, elegant extensions, finishing with a playful flourish. Confident and charismatic, he knows how to command attention. Theres an altogether different energy about the room, and I sense its Cruz.

He takes me onto the dance floor. Chris’ reassuring leading style has been dispensed with and I am now face to face with the maestro. We commence with Foxtrot. The proximity of this stranger before me is altogether foreign, has me breaking into sweats of anxiety. The music is loud, and I can’t decipher a word through his baffling Spanish accent. But he’s making me do exactly what he wants.

I adjust to the foreign world of nearness with a stranger by noticing details; his thick, wavy black hair unlike any hair I’ve ever seen, his left eye has pigment dispersion that extends beyond the iris, he smells faintly of cigarettes. None of these details are unpleasant. What is unpleasant are thoughts galloping wildly through my mind, threatening to completely derail me, jeopardising my efforts with the weight of a lifetime of fears and hang-ups.

Alarmingly my consciousness shifts back to high school dance lessons on the basketball courts. I’m a typical hyper self-aware teenager - outwardly aloof, inwardly a hot mess of distraction - emotionally unable to cope with this manner of engagement with the opposite sex. This is demonstrated by shuffling around the court, appearing not to care and most definitely not enjoying myself. Who would have thought that after all this time I would return to dance seeking…what exactly? Confidence, certainly. But more than this, I’m beginning to sense that theres deeper knowledge inscribed on the dancer’s body, an elemental form of communication and means of relating in the most primal of ways. Lets be honest: dance is, by and large, foreplay. Or, to dress that concept up: dance is the art of seduction. By copping-out in high school, I think I missed an important lesson.

I struggle with Swing and we wrap-up with Rhumba. This is where its at. The class is only 40 minutes long, which is a relief, because I’m done. Theres an hour before the group class so I walk a few blocks and find a bar where I have dinner. I return to the School, wondering all the while if I can run away, make some excuse. Lazy-me and shy-me are wanting to cop-out again.

A bell is rung signifying the start of group class, and those participating head upstairs to a larger space. Initially, the group consists of the teacher, a young lady named Lanelle, and one of the other members of staff, a gentleman named Alfredo. Two more couples file in a short while later.

Under instruction we dance apart, focusing on the steps. Where before I had been weirded-out dancing in-frame, now I was even more weirded-out dancing three meters apart. Alfredo and I are dancing in this peculiar manner until Lanelle tells us to take our partners. He stands too close. He’s stepping on my feet. Its kind of horrible. I need to push him away and stand a little askew of him. I was thinking that was incorrect when I did this naturally against Cruz; evidently it wasn’t. Evidently Cruz is a strong leader.

Its Thursday before Cruz shows me the Cha Cha.

He’s late for our lesson. I’m sitting on the couch where students change into their suede-soled dancing shoes, chatting to Alfredo about growing up in Mexico, where his mother taught him to dance.

Cruz arrives, apologises for being late. Then cordially bows and presents an open palm.

‘Lady, may I dance wid' you?’

He leads me through the basic steps of Cha Cha. Its easy, ergo enjoyable. I forget momentarily how awkward and ridiculous (I think) I look. I’m feeling more comfortable; today I can decipher some of what he’s saying.

There are other people on the dance floor: a male teacher and an experienced female student, as well as two teachers dancing together. Delilah is playing and Cruz is out of sorts with timing.

‘Can we change the music?’

Why why why Delilah?

The couples keep dancing like automatons, no-one pays any attention. Cruz strides over to the music terminal, clicking the mouse furiously. Couples glide by.

Why why whyyyy...

He strides back, presents a hooked arm for me to take and says;

‘Come on, we’re going upstairs to dance the Tango. Run! Run!’

The room is empty; timber floor, enormous mirrors, a window faces the street. There's a CD player in the corner, but he doesn’t start with music. He describes the Tango. Its the first time I properly hear and understand him.

‘The Tango is bery dramatic. Two steps then side together. Its berrry precise. We practice. Then there is the turn. Come here, to the mirror.’

He places his finger tips on the mirror, shoulder-width apart.

‘OK. Step, step. Swivel your hips. Right. You gadt it! Lets do it with the frame. Head up. Keep your frame. You’re using the frame to turn. You must turn from the hips only. Thaaat’s better!’

‘Wait for meeee. Ledt me lead you! I don’t know where I will lead you next, so you can’t anticipate where I will lead you!’

Its a refrain I’ll hear many times over the coming weeks.

At the end of class we sit down to review.

‘Now. You need to do two things. You need to faallow me. And you need to LISTEN!! I tell you something, you do something else.’

I leave class wondering why the concept of following is so problematic. Is it because, as a female in a ‘progressive society’ where women strive daily for respect and equality, that to be led by a man would somehow undermine this struggle? Is to be led to be weaker, or somehow inferior? Does it mean submission, does it require relinquishing the idea of being a strong independent woman? Have traditional male-female roles broken down to an extent that society is baffled and a little afraid of one another? Is it different in countries where men and women grow up comfortable with one another because they’ve learnt to dance together?

I have a few theories that are less socially generic, more personal. One has to do with the nature of working in hospitality. I was at work one night recently having a reflexive moment. I'm in the kitchen, polishing cutlery, my back to the pass. I hear the sound of a plate being pushed forward along the granite bench-top and immediately I spring into action, like Pavlov’s dogs on hearing the dinner bell, even before chef has called ‘service’. A great deal of working in a restaurant is anticipation; of guest’s needs, of where and how people are moving so you don’t crash into them or drop your plates, knowing whats ahead in terms of bookings and anticipating how the night might unfold. Eventually you find you've been behaviourally conditioned, to the point where you might be out in public and you find yourself calling ‘behind!’ like a crazed lunatic. Learning to dance requires that the focus shifts away from anticipation. As Cruz said; ‘I’m not teaching you choreography!’

My first day back after a couple of weeks break, fresh from a holiday away. I’ve got a new pair of proper heeled dance shoes; no more dancing in sneakers. I’m sitting on the couch looking around the room, when I notice for the first time a sign above a doorway.

'No fraternising between students and teachers'

Cruz invites me to dance, and we begin. Its a bit of a re-cap, but he’s also pushing ahead with new steps. I feel as though I’ve forgotten much. I like to have a picture of the steps - the shape they make - in my mind, like those black-and-white shoe-print graphics from the 50's. But today Cruz isn’t announcing the names of the dance, nor is he giving me his usual timing cues. I feel lost. But I shouldn’t be; I should allow myself to be led. He says:

‘Get the frame right. I need my hand here, so I can lead you. And you should push here - there has to be some resistance. Now, slowly.’

For the first time I feel complete capitulation, the movement for a time is fluid, in perfect synchronisation and without anxiousness. Its sensuous. Its like being shown by an experienced, confident lover, who unlocks the door of trust; completely different to any lover before. Doubts and fears that populate and crowd the mind fall away: am I doing the right things, am I good enough, am I pleasing to him…here only the bodies give feedback; they know what they’re doing is right. Questions become superfluous; there comes a beautiful quiet within the movement, a dynamic meditation. Its pure communion. And it feels right.

No wonder they need a sign over the door.

An acquaintance has invited me over to his bar, ostensibly with an offer of work; a small writing task. His kitchen-hand departs, the scene changes. A glass of wine and an indecent proposition.

‘What about your wife?’ Not to mention their baby daughter.

‘We’ve been married a long time. I don’t think she’d mind. We could have some fun.’

Awkwardness follows declination, proceeded by departure.

‘But I’m different!’ comes the final bleat of desperation from an open doorway.

I cross the road, get in my car and drive off.

Have a listen to yourself I think. ‘Fun’ is no longer fun for me. Come to think of it, it never was. In this context, ‘fun’ belongs to the other, the one demanding it. You’ve had your wedding, you’ve taken your vows, told the lies to get what you want. You’ve had the ‘happiest day of your life’ in the delivery room. I’ve had none of that, not even the illusion. I’ve only ever been someone’s bit of fun. Fuck you and your ‘fun’.

‘Follow me! Listen to me!’ 

There’s a subtlety that I’m just not getting, and its of absolute importance.

In dance, its impossible to get away with fudging-it. Cruz knows precisely where I’m off-balance from an incorrect weight transfer, or whether I’m stepping leading with my toes rather than rushing my heels. Its all communicated non-verbally, body to body, via the frame. He brings things that I’m doing incorrectly to my attention that I’m completely unaware of. My mind begins to unravel, awed in the face of his mastery over movement; its breathtaking to be in the presence of such acute awareness.

‘The lady should dance thinking; “I’m going to follow anywhere he leads me”, and the yentleman should be thinking: “I will lead her well, but she must faallow”.

Cruz misses a couple of lessons - he’s away overseas. During this time Alfredo replaces him. Greeting everybody with warmth and a big open smile, initially I mistook Alfredo’s gentleness for diffidence. Set against Cruze, his dance style and teaching method is entirely at odds, as individual as their personalities. What he lacks in drama and theatricality on the dance floor he makes up for with imaginative evocations, stories and word pictures that describe the intent you seek to achieve. Aware that I’m still struggling with the concept of following, he teaches me one of the most vital lessons.

‘The man has to lead. But you are 50% of the relationship. Because if you don’t like a man’s leading, then you find someone else!’

Cruz is back. There’s been a noticeable shift; unsurprisingly my following has improved. It feels easy, less laboured. He draws my attention to the frame, and I feel secure. Its starting to work as it should.

‘Now you can begin to enjoy to dance. You know all the steps. We will start to work on the styling, and then I will become realllly annoying!'

We’re dancing the Tango and Cruze is showing me a different frame style called ‘closed position’. Abruptly, the modest space between us ceases to exist. His right side false ribs contact my right equivalent, and the body contact continues down to the mid thigh. We’re much closer and he has far greater control over his leading ability.

‘There, now I can control your whole bahddy.’

I feel like I can’t breathe, but I see how it works. He insists that I’m not stepping long enough. We stop, and he shows me the lunge, and the timing of the step. We recommence. I repeatedly can’t manage it.

‘Whats wrong?! You need to shift the weight to this leg. Then your next step will be on this leg. Thaaaaats it! Always shift the weight. Gaht it? Yes. That’s berrrry good. Whats wrong? You got it!’

‘I’m trying to think through what it was I was doing wrong.’

‘NO! Just think about what you’re doing right - and keep doing it!’

Charlie comes to work one evening and proposes a word game to play during service.

‘Replace the word ‘dance’ with the word ‘wank’ in as many songs as you can think of.’

As we pass each other in the restaurant we swap answers.

Wanking in the Street.

I Wanna Wank with Somebody.

Let’s Wank.

Wanking Queen.

Do you wanna Wank?

Wank All Over your Face.

Save the Last Wank for me.

Shut Up and Wank.

I’m Never Gonna Wank Again.

And so on.

‘I nearly ran late for work today, my wank class ran overtime!’

Denis: ‘I have a sister whose a wank-instructor. And Terry’s sister is a wanker!’

Terry and I are working together in the kitchen, talking about our next intended travel destinations. Terry is recently back from Bolivia and Chile, recounting settings evocative and fecund with imagery. Regardless of when I eventually travel there, my passage will be guided by his vibrant, shimmering stories.

Latin America is in my sights; I met an inspiring woman who spent three months in Buenos Aires learning to tango, and instinctively it seemed like the perfect, reckless thing to do for a recently-divorced middle-aged woman. For her, that is. I was beginning to get the sense that The School caters primarily for such well-to-do ladies of means. I, by comparison, was struggling with my down-payments. To Terry: ‘Did I tell you I’ve taken up Latin and Ballroom dancing?’

‘I used to do Ballroom Dancing! Between the ages of 8 and 16 I competed for Southern Germany! You learn all about your frame, your distance from your partner. You learn manners. You weren’t allowed to tease the girls. There was respect. And you learn all about the opposite sex! How to move, how to adjust your hand, or your stance, to communicate your direction of movement. I mean, it’s a very intimate thing for young people to do. I was way more intimate with my dance partner than I was with my girlfriend at the time! I knew all about her body, how she’d move in space and in relation to me. I knew so much about her. It’s an education too. I learnt how to behave. And the South Americans! They’re so much more touchy-feely…and more comfortable with it!’

‘Its in complete contrast to the English with their weird repressed jigs’, declares Terry, as he Morris-dances around the kitchen stiffly and awkwardly, bowing and bobbing.

Terry describes the conceptual reasons that motivated me to learn to dance rather more eloquently than I’ve been able to.

Relational skills, which seem to be lacking in present day Sydney at any rate - the presence or absence of them seems rather randomly distributed as people deem them outdated and irrelevant. Leading and following is a form of communication, a language, an alignment. Its a wonderful thing to be led by a strong, confident partner, and its possible to learn confidence on the dance floor.

Confidence comes also when you realise that you play an equal role, and you have the choice to walk away if you aren’t led well.

Post-work beers at the pub, Karen and I get a table outside and immediately we’re inundated by drunk bogan office workers celebrating someone’s birthday. They’re standing up, crowding us, their bums are bumping into our heads, they’re resting their beers on our table. We drag our table away as far as we can, but we can’t hear each other talk. Theres heaps of them, and they’re awful to be around. One bloke starts apologising to us about his mate in a really patronising manner.

‘Oh sorry, sorry about him, he’s drunk!’

And simple as that, its implied that we’re the arseholes.

We leave our table and go inside, complaining to one another about the state of people’s manners in this city, and lament the loss of our pub again for the remainder of the year to dickhead office workers of the CBD needing to ‘cut-loose’. It begins in earnest at Halloween, followed shortly thereafter by Melbourne Cup, after which comes endless whacky Christmas party celebrations where grown men dress up in super-hero costumes and carry-on like drunk knobs. The nonplussed looks on the faces of the staff at our local says it all: they hate the suits as much as we do.

When finally we can hear one another again, I mention to Karen that I had a nice night at work talking to Terry about his memories of his dance background.

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ she replied ‘look at how beautifully he relates to people.’

It may seem obvious, I am a little slow, but its becoming evident that there might be a connection between positive social interaction and social dance culture. Lets just say that I’d be very surprised if any of the rude fellows invading our pub right now took the time to learn to learn to salsa. 

There’s Robin. His profile says he has a PhD in History, which is appealing. We meet for dinner. He’s coeliac, my first red-flag. Turns out he was never awarded his PhD, but he’s walked the Camino, or part of it.

There’s Piero - 52, Italian. Theres no reason not to consider an older man. If nothing else, they should make good lovers. He calls me ‘Nastassja Kinski’ throughout the course of dinner, adding how he’s very funny and talented at giving people nicknames. I don’t bother to find out if he’s Cassanova.

Theres Nathan, a musician. He seems solid, honest, a hard worker. But there isn’t any spark, and no time for anyone but himself. The deal-breaker comes when he sends me a photo of himself in his bedroom. I zoom in to a coat-hanger on a wall in the background. Its a plaque that reads ‘Rockstar’, designed for 8-year-old boys.

Theres Rob, self-declared entrepreneur, reeking of money. That should make a nice change. We meet for drinks at Hubert’s. He can’t stop talking about how much he loves to drink Champagne. OK, lets drink Champagne. He can’t stop talking about Ivy, he’s got a membership. His favourite restaurant is Mr Wong. A bottle of French Pinot Noir? Sure. I’ll give you a lift home. When the taxi arrives at my place, he gets out, expecting to be invited in. He’s not. Some weeks later he messages me in a hurt and circumspect manner. Whats the issue?, I ask. ‘You stopped talking to me’. Oh FFS.

Theres David, a Norwegian intelligence and data expert on assignment in Dallas, who likes to read and play video games in his spare time, who just wants to ‘love and be loved’. In dialogue with him, I feel as though I’m under surveillance; he wants to know where I am and what I’m doing. When I break it to him that this isn’t my idea of a good time, I cop a tirade of abuse. ‘You’re just like all the others’, and he had ‘just applied for his leave to come and spend time with me’, not at my request, and not that I’d been made aware of.

'Hi, I’m Tom. I’m doing ‘Hello Fresh’ and into F45 and loving it!'

Lets exchange numbers. I’d love to come over to yours and make you feel good. Do you live alone? Do you have kids? (Would you like my bank account details?)

Hamid Bill Chanakya Michael Manel William Mark Rogério Burak Mustafa Stephane Xabier Mingo Carlos Manel Amani Roger Craig Davey Oleg Roussos.

You look for points of commonality, shared interests, a similar taste in music. It amounts to nothing. In fact, everything these days means nothing, and you’re silly for thinking that it did. I’ve come full circle, from ‘what’s wrong with me?’ to ‘whats wrong with everyone else?’ and I don’t have any answers, other than ‘there’s nothing wrong with me’. Still, its hardly surprising that I exist in a state of bewilderment.

‘I just have to believe there’s someone out there for me’. I’m sitting across the table from Christine in cynical silence. I’m not offering any words of encouragement because I don’t have any. I remember when I wanted someone in my life this badly. Now I’ve come out the other side; the only thing I guard jealously is my free-time.

‘My sister is on the apps’ Kelvin tells me. ‘They might have worked in the beginning, but now everyone on them knows that theres nothing but trash on them. So they go along to meet up and both parties are just like; ‘I’m not serious about this’. The only way you can meet someone is through friends, and you meet friends of friends and so on. The chances of meeting anything good on the apps these days is miniscule. It would be like winning Powerball.

Kelvin has summarised several years of my in-the-field research in a nutshell.

‘You must start to be more elegant!’ Declares Cruz. ‘Look up and to the left. Don’t be like this!’ (hunches shoulders forward)

He pushes my shoulders back and makes me stand up straight, demonstrating how I should look. He laughs at my silliness - not belittling, but in an encouraging, almost loving way.

‘Now, we have a dance-check. Where are my shoes? I need to go upstairs. I’ll be back.’

While he’s gone, I reflect on the need to feel safe and encouraged in a learning environment, particularly when it comes to developing your armour propre. In reality, how rarely this environment of nurture materialises for us. I guess thats where the School of Hard Knocks takes over, making the armour propre so brittle, easy to shatter or dismantle.

‘I can’t find my shoes! I’ll have to dance in these. They’re not the right ones. They don’t have the right heel.’

‘Lets relax! And smile! The lady is sometimes like this (pulls face, grimacing) but she don’t know whether the guy is a good dancer or not!’

So we dance. For the first time I notice that Cruz feels different. Its because of his shoes. Its only the tiniest of appreciable differences. I feel as though I’m no longer being led around the floor like a horse in a lunging-ring, but stepping into my own, tuning-in to the channel, speaking the language. Its as though the circuit is closed, the feedback loop is complete. Now the exchange of information can flow freely in both directions.