Country Swing Dancing, one of the Best Ways to Meet New People and Make Friends
Are you looking to meet new people and make new friends in your area? Well if you get the chance, I would recommend going to a Country Bar that has Country Swing Dancing. The one thing that I’ve noticed when going Country Swing Dancing is that there are generally lots of girls who can dance in comparison to guys. And the fact that I’m a guy writing about this topic I can say for certain from the guys perspective that if you know how to dance or even like to dance and get out there on the dance floor with a girl to dance, you will definitely meet way more people than your other buddies who stand on the side lines watching you dance. And this goes the same for girls as well, those girls who dance more meet more people and end up making more friends in general then their companions who don’t dance. I’m going to explain from my own experience how I’ve changed since learning how to Country Swing Dance and I hope this changes your perspective too. So, here are the many reasons why Country Swing Dancing greatly improves your chances of meeting new people and making new friends.
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Confidence
Now before I knew how to Country Swing Dance, I remember the first experiences I had with meeting new people and interacting with them. I was very shy and didn’t say much because I was afraid that maybe I might say the wrong thing and people might not like me. Not talking to people didn’t help me much looking back because people were always thinking you weren’t very much fun to be around because you didn’t even talk to them let alone know how to dance. Now I know I wasn’t the best guy to talk to when I was just in the beginning phases of learning how to dance and I would say stupid things sometimes but as I got to dance more, I began to realize that talking got easier.
Another point that I would like to point about gaining confidence is the fact that the more opportunities you have to face your fears, then you get more opportunities to gain confidence. And I think with guys the biggest and most common fear at dances is the fact that they are afraid of being rejected. The challenge that is going to help them gain confidence is to be able to face the rejection without fear and move on. This doesn’t always happen right away and sometimes people won’t challenge their fears for weeks but let’s just talk about what’s going on at Country Dances. One of the best things about Country Dancing is that every song that is played if it’s a Country Song I would say about 99% of all Country Songs you can dance with someone to it. So the opportunities for someone to face their fears is almost always present which is a good thing because if the opportunity isn’t there like lets say there’s a rap song or hip hop song that a guy feels really uncomfortable to go ask a girl to dance with him in then he’s less likely to face the fears and gain confidence.
One of the things that I realized as time went on was that the more confident you got with asking girls to dance the more sociable you became. And also if you kept confident when asking someone to dance, as long as you showed confidence, regardless of how bad you were at dancing, people would not turn down your offers to dance as often. So being confident really helps you meet new people.
So when you are learning how to dance the best thing to talk to people about is how to do dance moves. So if you are a guy and see a guy who can dance then ask him how to do a dance move and most likely he will bring a girl over to help you and if you are a girl then you also might need to ask a guy how to do a dance move because guys lead the moves and can get you to do them while other girls just follow, but if you see a girl who can dance really good she can fill in all the fine details that some guys can’t. So in general if you want to build confidence then Country Swing Dancing gives lots of opportunity for you to build your confidence by facing your fears and also by developing how to approach and socialize with others. Once you get really good at dancing then people started coming to ask you questions about how to do different dance moves too!
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Socialization Skills
One thing I’ve noticed about Country Swing Dancing is that most of the people who are really good at it are also pretty good talkers. And I think the reason for that is because they are constantly in contact with someone at these dances. Guys and girls who are dancing with each other are also doing lots of talking with each other in general. So if you don’t feel confident about your socialization skills, I would say that one of the best topics to bring up is how to do different dance moves and see if they have an interest in doing some with you. One of the things that reminds me why some people won’t talk with you could be because they think you are trying to pick them up and they might feel that’s what you are trying to do, but if you can show that all you are trying to do is learn the moves and make friends you will have a lot better chances at improving your social skills with them.
Another point I would make is that if you are a guy then asking guys how to do dance moves seems to help a lot more in being able to socialize and make new friends. One of the best things about making friends of the same sex in general is that your buddies don’t hurt you psychologically as much as someone of the opposite sex, and I think it’s because of the relationships of guy and girls in general. When two people are attracted to each other it’s also harder on their emotions when they break up. And both worry what the other one might say about them.
Some of the things that I really want to point out here about your interactions with the opposite sex that you should know is that you need to stay confident and calm when things go south. People who overreact are actually hurting inside and they can say things about you that hurt your character and reputation, which most likely are not true. I would say if you have a buddy either guy or girl then I would resort to going to them for support if they are good at supporting you. If you don’t have no one then getting proper sleep and enough rest really helps as well. The next thing to do is find someone else that you would like to get to know and go talk to them and buildup a new friendship and hopefully that will distract you from the present problems you are experiencing. The nice thing about Country Dancing is that it doesn’t take long if you are willing to go ask someone to dance to go meet someone new. Literally it can take seconds and once you’ve built up some of that confidence then getting social with people becomes easier and moving on from bad experiences is easier as well.
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Body Language
When you ask enough people to dance you start to see a lot of patterns with the body language that people display when you approach them. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that you can’t change other people’s body language, but you can certainly show what kind of body language you want to display to someone. Let’s look at the scene where you ask someone to dance. If you approach someone with a sad or straight face without a smile on it the person you ask might not feel comfortable dancing with you because you don’t look like the kind of person that will make them happy. Next you also want to show calmness, if you ask someone to dance because if they see you are fidgeting or flinching a lot then they might think that you are quite nervous and kind of weird. You also want to be gentle with someone and this is probably one of the most important things I don’t think I can stress enough is that you don’t want to be forcing someone to the point where they might get hurt. Be gentle, smooth and slow with whoever you are with so that they don’t get hurt. If you do those 3 things you will have performed to the best of your ability in presenting your body language to the one you asked to dance.
Now you might not be perfect at displaying your body language to others when you are just learning how to ask someone to dance but as time goes on and you do it more and more you start to realize that with practice you get better. So don’t be afraid of looking nervous. If your adrenaline is going and your heart is beating fast and you can’t help it, just try your best to keep calm, cool and collected and after doing it many times over your adrenaline will eventually disappear.
One experience that I remember very well that I want to share when I was asked a girl to dance and she rejected my offer was that I didn’t move anywhere away from her when she turned me down. What I ended up doing was I started to look around but didn’t realize that I was making her very uncomfortable by standing there in the same spot where I asked her. She looked back at me and said what are you doing still there? And I didn’t realize that it made her uncomfortable, so I moved in a rushed fashion and felt very embarrassed.
One thing that I’ve learned from those experiences is that instead of rushing, the best thing you should do is just acknowledge that you made them uncomfortable and then apologize and turn and walk away calm, cool and collected. The key here that I want to point out is that I rushed, and I didn’t have to. And I also flinched which didn’t need to happen either but I just felt really embarrassed at the time and realized overtime after making those kinds of mistakes that you just need to slow down and take your time and when they turn you down try to play it cool and remember to walk away from them so that they can feel comfortable and so will you if you think about it.
Some people can reject you very rudely and when you can play it cool and walk away from those experiences without rushing, without flinching, and also while smiling then you will have mastered one huge lesson in life and that is that you control how you are going to feel in bad situations. When people see that you are in control of your emotions, they like you more and also respect you more and that’s why learning how to ask a person to dance is such a great character builder.
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Popularity
One of the things that I’ve learned about Country Swing Dancing is that when you get really good you become very popular and well known in whatever Country Bar you go to. If you are looking to meet new people it’s very easy when you are a good dancer because either you have people coming up to you asking you to dance or you have other people coming up to you and saying that you are a good dancer and they start talking to you and they show interest in you like they want to get to know you. I’ve been to Country Dancing Bars all across the United States and Canada and it’s like that everywhere. So being a good Country Swing Dancer really gives you the opportunity to meet new people easily.
But I also want to point out that if you aren’t a good country dancer it doesn’t mean you will find it harder, the key in trying to meet new people is that you have to go to them. And if you have the courage to ask someone to dance then that’s just as good of a method to take to meet someone and make new friends. I can say that for me learning how to ask someone to dance was my most important social skill in making friends. Dancing is just an added bonus to getting more of them.
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Knowledge
When you get really good at dancing you end up having all this knowledge about how to do different dance moves. And what that does is gives you a key to meeting new people because now you have something that they want.
I’ve had many people come up to me and ask me how to do a dance move because they seen me dancing. And in that process, I’m able to get to know them.
The knowledge you gain from learning how to dance is not only a skill about the physical movement of the body, it’s also a character developer when it comes to interacting with people. You learn, patience, kindness, tact, socialization skills, mental health development skills, body language reading skills, interpersonal skills, relationship skills, cooperation, creativity skills and much, much more! Most of the skills you learn in Country Swing Dancing happen to be with other people and so this is why the knowledge you get from Country Swing is so valuable with getting to meet other people and make new friends.
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Networking
One of the coolest things about Country Swing Dancing is that there is so much you can do to network with other people. If you are looking to keep long distance relationships with people, then using social media and other communication platforms is essential. I can tell you that most of my long-distance friends that I’ve developed were kept by networking with them either by phone or the internet or both. If you are looking to meet people and make friends at the bar don’t hesitate to ask for someone’s phone number or social media info to keep in contact.
This is probably is one of the areas that I honestly lack in is asking for people’s contact info and I know I should do more and if I can tell you the truth mainly it’s because you get so caught up in either dancing or just talking or all the stuff that’s going on around you that sometimes or a lot of the time I miss asking people for contact information. So if you can take one key note from me is that if you are really looking to make friends, try to get their contact information before you leave the place where you met them!
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Community