There tends to be a little more Latin than necessary in your Latin dancing when you go two nights in a row in a single week, rather than just one. So Thursdays are Salsa Chocolate, where there is much salsa, some bachata, and a little merengue. Most people are fairly good dancers, and some are great. This is the night that I like to go. Fridays are called the Bachata Room, and there is much bachata, cumbia, and merengue, some banda, and a little salsa. I went once, with the originator of my Latin dancing, and he was grumpy the whole time for the lack of salsa. I mostly danced with him, and thus did not have tons of fun. As such, I avoided Friday Latin dancing. But then. I took my cousin from Chicago Latin dancing with me on Thursday. She loved it as much as I, and so naturally we went Friday too. It was not quite the same... For the following reasons.
1. The music. It's four times as loud as Salsa Chocolate, which is pretty loud. The Bachata Room is feel-it-in-your-chest-I'm-going-to-be-pushed-about-by-sound-waves loud. Definitely not as pleasant. In addition to this, the songs are melded together, making it hard to extricate yourself from dancing with whomever you happen to be dancing with. This is opposed to Salsa Chocolate, wherein there is a distinct beginning and end to each song, and you dance one or maybe two dances with the same person in a row.
2. The lights. Salsa Chocolate they hang out, maybe change color, chill.... Bachata room they strobe, and flash, and pulse, and all that jazz.
3. The people. At Salsa Chocolate there are decent amounts of people, and they are about half and half young and older. At Bachata Room there are hundreds of thousands (hyperbole) and they are all young. Except for my forty-year old who likes to ask me out, because naturally he was there too.
4. The dancing. Salsa Chocolate is a more proficient dancing scene. About a third of the people have no idea what they're doing, and the other two thirds are tons of fun to dance with. Bachata Room, some people know some stuff, but on the whole you encounter mediocre dancers. There's also quite a bit of standing about in little groups doing we're-American-and-thus-don't-know-how-to-do-much-so-let's-jump.
5. The atmosphere. At Salsa Chocolate it is largely we-love-to-dance-this-is-fun. You can encounter various vibes (young and sexually frustrated, old and sexually frustrated, I love to dance, young and clueless but trying, old and kind, etc). At Bachata Room there are fewer (in my experience. I think my cousin got better vibes). Pretty much young and sexually frustrated. i.e. most of the night was spent trying to avoid too much closeness.
These above things resulted in this equation.
Deafening music + epilepsy-inducing lights + crowds of young people (and lots of cologne) + bouncy dancing and twirling + avoiding too much closeness and partner extrication = Go-my-oodness-I-feel-like-I'm-on-drugs-and-I-want-to-leave-this-place-nowish.
It didn't start out like this, but it builds. So after awhile I was quite ready to leave. Especially since one of my goober encounters was with my forty-year old, who then wanted to find me after we danced the first time, which was absolutely not comfortable. And so he kinda sorta stalked me for a bit. So. My cousin saw I was ready to get out of there, and though she was having much more fun than I (encountering fewer goobers), said that she just wanted to stay for the next bachata set, and then we could go. That sounded great to me. So while we waited for the music to change we went and sat in the back of the club by the bathrooms on the couch, in normal lighting, and where the music sounded normal. Twas nice there. Then there were a couple guys who were back there. Cousin had danced with one of them quite a bit, and the other was wearing orange, so I had noticed him because he made me think of my brother. So they came over, and started talking to us, and hanging out, and danced with us in the back where it didn't feel like you were on drugs, and then life was better, and the night less unnecessarily Latin. And we went home and slept.
So basically, Fridays are good if you bring large groups of people, or you accidentally meet really cool nice people.
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