I also found it strange at the start that people would dance solely for just dancing. I know dancing from nightclubs, social dancing is not that.

I now see myself making a passive effort to avoid becoming caught up in my scene. There are many dancers in my community who love to do YT highlight videos, for popularity and such. I had to take a step back and see that these wouldn't really matter in 5 or 10 years. I still think that any regular social dancers have a part in their communities so I find a reason and motivation by helping newbies and just trying to promote safe dancing.

At this point, I just really like to keep dance and relationships apart. I believe that some ladies and guys aren't quite or open-minded enough to just see it as dancing. I've come across dancers who view it as a strictly one-on-one romantic activity, which is fine, but so I prefer taking my partner to a community social dance rather than a club-like setting for one. Because as I see it, there really isn't a point going to those types of club like contexts, unless otherwise we're fine with dancing with the people there and sometimes we're not skilled enough to specifically slice through dance boundaries, for example, women and men getting to close.

I've also made dance friends in where we are just simply just dance friends. Yes, during practice or social dancing, we can sometimes become intimate, sensual, and even slightly sexual, but we know that this would mess us up and further complicate our dance journeys if we go further. And so these agreements not only made me a better dancer, but it also gave us a great extension for social interactions and for filling up our affection meters (for the lack of word). Navigating friends and relationships undoubtedly took a lot of mind bending but I'm glad to have reached this stage.

For events, I've just become a bit picky sometimes. I know when my local venue have more than 2 bdays, it'll take at least 15 minutes of idle time plus performances. And I just sometimes got the point where I just want some good dances lol.

Right now I'm trying to maintain a good balance in health because all these sleeping late and nightly cardio is definitely not healthy, wear and tear, so this is where I'm at... Would like to read advice from veterans :)