When a Crush Becomes a Dance for Two

At first, it is just one look.

He catches your eye, smiles, and carries on with his life. You, meanwhile, take that three-second exchange home with you and give it a very comfortable evening. By bedtime, it has subtext, chemistry and a surprisingly promising future.

Then he says hello the next time you see him, and naturally this gives you something new to work with. Was the hello slightly warmer? Did he linger? Did he smile before you smiled? You are not saying it means anything, of course. You are simply replaying it six or seven times in the spirit of responsible reflection.

A few weeks later, he remembers something you told him.

Well.

Now the crush has something to live on.

Somewhere around here, without quite noticing when it happened, you stop merely liking a man and begin what appears to be a rather elegant ballroom dance.

The slight complication is that you seem to be doing both parts.

The Gentleman Has Not Taken the Floor

You see him again and start finding little reasons to be near him. Nothing obvious, of course. You walk past, sit nearby, stay a little longer. Completely casual. At least that is what we are calling it.

He smiles, you smile, and then he asks how your weekend was. You answer beautifully, leaving several perfectly good openings through which a man could wander if he felt inclined.

He does not wander.

Still, the music is playing, so you continue. Maybe he is shy. Maybe he is taking his time. Maybe that look meant more than it seemed to mean. You take one small step toward him, wait for his, and when nothing much happens, quietly add another step on his behalf because otherwise this dance is going to become terribly stationary.

And you can keep this going for quite a while because almost anything can be worked into the choreography. He remembers your coffee order and, lovely, we have a turn. He laughs harder at your joke than everyone else, so naturally we add a little flourish. He sends a message about something completely ordinary and, well, nobody said romance had to announce itself with an orchestra.

From inside the crush, all of this feels rather promising.

From the balcony, though, the view is becoming interesting.

One person has been waltzing for three songs, and the gentleman is still beside the wall.

The Dance Is Getting a Little Carried Away

Months pass, and somehow the dance is still going. At least from your side of the ballroom.

By now, you have become very good at keeping a little movement in it—a conversation here, an opening there, the occasional coincidence that has received rather more help than coincidence usually requires. From across the room, you are covering quite a lot of floor.

The trouble is, he remains pleasant.

And pleasant is excellent fuel for a crush like this. A cold man would spoil everything much too quickly. A pleasant man smiles, chats, remembers little things and occasionally moves just enough to make you think he may finally be coming over.

He does not.

But what a promising half-step!

So the dance continues, helped along by tiny moments that keep getting promoted into something larger. Before long, it has developed scenes that have never actually happened, which is quite a lot of choreography for a man who still has not crossed the floor.

The only person who seems oddly unfamiliar with this love story is the leading man. He has not asked you out, nothing has really moved forward, and he may not even know there is a ballroom.

Meanwhile, you are already halfway through the second act. Three smiles, two conversations and one message can keep a crush like this going for months.

Give it another month and there may be costumes.

Eventually, though, one awkward little problem becomes difficult to ignore: nothing seems to move unless you move it.

At Some Point, You Notice Who Is Moving

And one day, usually without any grand moment at all, you see the dance from farther away.

You stop supplying the next step. You do not create another coincidence or leave another beautifully convenient opening. And when he makes one tiny movement, you resist the urge to pick it up, polish it and carry it halfway across the ballroom yourself.

Suddenly the room becomes terribly spacious.

He may still smile. He may still be lovely. He may ask how your weekend was and remember how you take your coffee. But when you stop creating the movement, something rather revealing happens.

Nothing much happens.

The music is still there. The floor is still there. So is the gentleman.

He simply does not cross it.

And once you notice that, the whole thing becomes rather difficult to unsee.

For months, this may have felt like the beginning of an exquisite duet—slow, complicated, almost there. But from across the room, it looks much simpler.

You have been dancing.

He has been standing exactly where he started.

And after a while, even the orchestra starts looking at him.