There is a dance ball. It’s outdoors. There’s a pool full of water lilies and lotuses. Everybody is dressed like the 1930s or 1940s, and I am too – I am there in a tuxedo.
I meet a sweet young woman, and we dance. I lead, she follows. We dance and dance. The dance intimately connects us – I feel what she feels, she feels what I feels. Through the dance I take care of her and make her feel like the most wonderful dancer in the world.
Indeed, I make this night the best night of her life, and my pleasure comes from knowing that I made it so.
As the music fades, we sit down, hold hands, and enjoy each other’s presence for a few, final, precious moments. We part, never to contact each other ever again.
When I was 15 I went to an outdoor masque ball, and a couple hours before, I decided I would pretend to be a boy and dance with all the girls. With so little preparation, I sucked as a boy, though I did dance with girls, and I even fooled one into thinking I really was a boy.
One time, I brought some female friends to downtown San Jose. I drove. One friend commented ‘Wow, you can drive a stick!’ That pleased me because of the masculine connotations of driving stick-shift. I navigated, because I was the one who knew downtown San Jose best. I picked the restaurant – and everybody really liked it. We saw a mounted policeman, rode on a ferris wheel, then saw a play. The play was disappointing, but that was not my fault. Then, I drove them back home. It was exhilarating be responsible for giving girls a great evening.
I once took a swing dance class, largely because of this fantasy. During the first class, I followed, but dancing with guys felt wrong. Next class, I led, and felt much better. I was the only female leader in the class. One girl asked me if I was a lesbian, and I honestly answered ‘no’, but quite frankly I did not care what people thought. I really do want to take another swing class some day, and actually go to swing dance clubs on a regular basis.
And once, I was in a tap dance performance – and not only was I wearing a tuxedo, I was paired with a girl in a dress.
In this fantasy, I think of myself as being an extreme tomboy, not truly male. My cis-female identity does not change. I do not even consider this a romantic fantasy in the traditional sense because, while I do become psychologically intimate with the girl, we do not kiss, or even hug. Most of all, I think it is a fantasy about transcending the mundane and, for a moment, connecting with another human being, a moment made all the more precious because it is fleeting.
The Notes Which Do Not Fit 
This kind of fantasy appeals to me, also.
Most of all, I think it is a fantasy about transcending the mundane and, for a moment, connecting with another human being, a moment made all the more precious because it is fleeting.
That’s my own definition of romance, basically. At least, the only one that’s broad enough to make sense to me.
Hmmm, for me, that’s too broad to mean romance – at least romance with a small ‘r’. Now, if you mean Romance with a capital ‘R’ – as in
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
or
The Mysteries of Udolpho
and so forth, I have to agree, but when most people talk about romance, they mean romance with the small ‘r’.
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(No need to publish this comment — I’d send a direct email, but don’t have your address)
Typo in your post: should be “Next class, I led” (not “lead”).
(I wish more things on the web were like Wikipedia. I’m a bit of a compulsive typo spotter, and I wish I could just quietly correct tiny errors (subject to approval of the author). Like tending to a garden by plucking a weed here and there.
Of course, typos usually don’t matter. Not sure why they bother me so much. Of course, they also humanize a text. So maybe I should just let them be. But I can’t help fussing about such trivialities. And I suppose such fussing is also human.)
Anyhoo! I also wanted to tell you how much I like your blog. Somehow I get an email every time you post, and I always enjoy reading what you write. And sometimes, when I have time, as I seem to have quite a lot of these days, I check through your archives. I don’t read many blogs regularly, but somehow yours has found a place in the small motley collection that I find worth reading in its entirety.
I like reading your posts because they are a combination of smart, hyper-rational, endearing, informative, thought-provoking, well-written, honest, original, exemplary. Your writing isn’t relevant to me in any obvious way, except for the language/Asia angle.
So I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it’s nice to see you write what you do.
Take care. I look forward to reading more.*
k
*(No pressure though… Me, the times I’ve written public stuff, I soon found the stress of public writing unbearable. It was probably because what I wrote was junk, or if not junk, not sufficiently in my own voice, so somehow false. You don’t seem to have that problem.)
Your comment was published automatically (when I have approved a previous comment of somebody, their further comments do not have to pass moderation). If you would prefer, I can unpublish this comment.
Typo fixed! Thanks for catching it.
Your praise is making me blush. Not sure how to respond.
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