In these past few days (weeks?) where I have asked myself if self, family, community, subculture, planet, galaxy are or are not more than symbols, I make no quick, foolish or foolishly quick decisions.

In a dream last night, my dream personality chased myself up into consciousness sprawled across the sleeping sofa, on which I turned and scribbled these notes in the moonlight:

16 Jan 14

I’m finished with touching another body on the dance floor or having to look into a person’s eyes because so much sexual tension builds up in me without a way to relieve the tension…. not fun anymore.  I’ve become used to the separation of reality from wishes, it just loses interest.  Reducing desire to pursue partners. Need to thank my instructor for wanting to dance competitively with me but it’s not going to happen unless there are serious changes in my life.

As of tomorrow, it will have been a year since I started attending dance workshops with my wife.

In dance workshops, my wife and I initially start out holding hands and dance together before dance leaders or followers are asked to rotate, meaning that I get a new dance partner for 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 seconds to attempt a new dance formation; with that dance partner, I meet a new person, a new set of life’s experiences to ask about, a new wider/narrower/taller/shorter body shape to adjust to, a new hair colour to physically look down on (although, occasionally I’ve danced with women my height or taller), a hand to grip gently or firmly, new eyes to hold my attention.

For the majority of the dance partners, the new dance formation occupy my thoughts, learning how to move my body to make my dance partner’s moves look amazing and lovely.

For a few of the dance partners, a certain fluidity of energy passes through our fingers, as if unspoken desires are literally at our fingertips.

I enjoy the flirtatious nature of dancing, no doubt about it.

But for those few dance partners, the flirtatiousness feels more electric, bordering on lust, knowing that my partner and I are setting up a situation with foreplay that doesn’t necessarily include us.

The understanding between myself and a dance partner has ranged from the almost regimented rigid cold upper body sentiment of an Irish “River Dance” jig to the glued-together warm sensuous flow of a blues dance.

If it were only Irish jig dancers I encountered during workshops, my manly arousal wouldn’t be a problem.

Instead, the one or two out of a hundred workshop participants who turn up the heat drive me insane and, as even my dream self has chased out of me, I have no satisfactory outlet to make those future encounters enjoyable.

Thus, to keep my marriage intact and my sanity in check, I’m trying to figure out how to get across to my wife that our current arrangements are unsatisfactory.

All while my niece and nephew’s grandmother is dying…

All in the luxury of a middle-class lifestyle, snug and warm in a heated home.

After a year of “blue balls,” so to speak, I can’t take it anymore!  I refuse to attend another dance workshop or group dance lesson or I SHALL GO MAD!!!