dancing with Jose

Myself and two friends (Laurel and Julia) have been itching to go dancing lately. Our favorite is swing dancing and then salsa. Julia found out a swingy jazz band was playing about an hour away and we thought there'd be swing dancing. So we got all dolled up last night and drove over. We walked in and were greeted to the back of 100 white-haired heads. Everyone there was 80. And they were SITTING and listening to the band. What??

So we laughed at ourselves a bit and then went and asked a young person working the event if he knew of any dancing around town. He said there was a Mexican restaurant that had salsa dancing on Saturday nights. Sweet! So we found the place and sat down for dinner before the dancing.

There was a live band and they were awesome. But no one was dancing. So Julia went over to the bar and asked a guy to dance. He brought over his 2 friends to dance with Laurel and I. And that is when I met Jose.

Jose was probably late 40's and I was taller than him. And weighed more than him. He was very nice, trying to teach me merengue, and asking questions. I then realized Jose didn't speak English. Luckily I know some Spanish so we talked a bit while we danced. At first it was innocent stuff like what was my name, where do I live, what do I do, what is my favorite type of dance. I asked him the same things and at the favorite-dance question he said, "Salsa, cumbia, merengue..." and then he smiled all seductively, "...romantica."

Uh-oh.

Jose and I danced a couple songs and then I started getting sweaty and needed a break. He asked if he could buy me a drink. No, gracias. He asked me to dance a few other times during the night. At first I did and it was fun. He's a good leader. But then he started asking me "Tiene un novio?" Do I have a boyfriend. Oh crap.

I told him I sort of did. And then he smiled and pointed to himself. Noooooo. From that moment on, I pretended like I completely forgot how to speak Spanish. He was telling me how beautiful I was and I kept looking at him weird and making it seem like I couldn't understand. No comprendo.

We were getting sleepy around 11. Jose came to ask me to dance one more time and I told him I was super tired (I was). But Julia wanted to dance some more so I motioned at her. He danced with her but the best part was everytime he spun her on the dance floor, he would look up at me with raised eyebrows as if saying, "See what you're missing?" Laurel and I were giggling like fiends. We could NOT pull it together.