Great Expectations

I have just returned from Delaware, where I got to spend time with my dear friend Rachel. We had two goals for the weekend: 1.) Go Dancing and 2.) Appraise the New Man.

I love to go dancing, although I never ever get to do it - thanks mainly to my lack of anyone here in Connecticut to go with me. My other going-out friends here are more of the dinner-and-copious-intoxicants variety, which is why I am generaly designated driver rather than dancing fool.

So. Rachel planned the dancing. Of course we were going to go with her sister, who is an extraordinary dancer, and her sister's boyfriend, and Rachel, who is herself a very good dancer, and Rachel's new man whom I - by dint of being both discerning and blunt - had been charged with vetting. For the first round of review, he only had to exceed the very low threshold set by her previous significant other. My shorthand for this threshold is "not an ass-fuck."

I am, if I do say so myself, an exceptionally mediocre dancer. Being a mediocre dancer means, in my case, that when I am dancing with a group of my friends, I will be approached by 6-10 men offering to dance with me, but they will all be white, inebriated, and employed in a technical field. Rachel, being a very good dancer, will attract more men, many of whom can actually dance. And Rachel's sister will attract an admiring crowd of on-lookers.

So. I am a mediocre dancer who last went dancing two years ago, also in Delaware, where I entertained my dancing friends by being an apparent magnet to all manner of creepily enthusiastic guys of the H-1 B visa sort. And if I recall correctly, prior to that it was dancing at a Juarez nightclub when an intrepid little mambo king had scooted up to me and LICKED MY NECK.

Perhaps I should take up golf.

But no matter. I was exhausted, because I had been up two nights prior with a nightmare-plagued child and one night prior with a raging cold and so we were going to go out EARLY. Early, when dancing is on the menu, means 9:00, which by my standard is not that early at all. And which, when you factor in Rachel's sister's boyfriend's requisite 2-hour preening time, is actually impossible.

Anyway. Eventually we were at the bar and we were dancing. Rather, Rachel was dancing with The New Man and I was doing that vague third-wheel kind of dancing beside her, when a particularly enthusiastic Richard Simmons dead ringer sidled up behind me and started grinding.

Ahem.

Only I did not notice, because hey, it's a crowded dance floor and you just can't investigate every little bump.

Bump bump bump bump - hey, what's Rachel laughing at? - bump bump HUMP HUMP HUMP - *Hey!* THAT was not incidental.

I moved away. I scowled at Rachel. I reminded her of the unspoken parameters of our friendship: "Here's the deal. I don't let you date ass-fucks. You don't let some guy try to ass-fuck me on the dance floor."

Point taken. We resumed dancing. Now a little more wary, I had to investigate another bump. A rather earnest software engineer biting his lip with concentration had tried to take up where Richard Simmons had left off. Ack. I whipped around. A third guy moved in to try his luck.

In desperation I threw myself at Rachel, who was no longer dancing since she had long since doubled over with laughter.

"Do I have a magnet in my ass?" I demanded. I don't get it. I'm not exactly known for my ferocious badonkadonk. (Oh, please. If Trace Akins can co-opt it, it's fair game.) A college friend of mine once bragged of having "black-lady butt." Mine is more of the German-Grandma variety.

The New Man stepped in to shield me from the onslaught. Bonus points for him.

Back to dancing. I felt a tug on my arm and turned to find another guy inviting me to dance with him. Unlike all previous suitors, he was a.) not attempting a clandestine bump and grind and b.) well, that's enough, isn't it?

So after my opening line of "I am very married" was parried with, "No problem, so am I," we started dancing. He proved himself to be a suitably mediocre dancer, and seemed goofily harmless. After awhile I dropped the protective Heisman stance, and it was more fun than doing the Third Wheel.

And then he smacked me on my ass.

Giddy-up.

I kid you not.

I was drenched in sweat and so tired I was nearly hallucinating and I reinstated the Heisman distance and didn't really worry too much about it when I felt a rather refreshing breeze on my neck. Thoughtful dance partner that he was, he had lifted my hair and was blowing on my neck.

I looked over. Rachel was smirking over the shoulder of The New Man, who was so totally blissed out by her dancing that he was now legally blind. No help from that quadrant.

Goofy but harmless, I reiterated to myself. Goofy but harmless. I shook my hair out of his hands and kept dancing and things were going more or less smoothly. Until he stuck his tongue in my ear.

Golf it is.

We left. The New Man bought me a bottle of water. Clearly he knows who holds the pass-fail power around here.

Later, after he left, Rachel quizzed me, "Verdict?"

I gave her a thumbs-up. "Not an ass-fuck," I answered.

And some days, that's the most you can hope for.