Double Date Dilemma at the Dance

Story Submitted by Daniel:

Penny and I agreed to meet up at a cafe that held dances twice a month.  They'd clear out all of their tables, hire an instructor, and people would come in to learn various dances, like salsa, swing, Lindy hop, etc.

She seemed really bright and nice and on the level, and I was looking forward to meeting her, doing some dancing, and hopefully grabbing some dinner or drinks afterward.

We met up outside the place and went inside.  She looked around the crowd inside and saw someone that she knew.

"Stewart!" she said, and broke away from me and ran across the room to another guy.  I followed her and stood nearby as she gave Stewart a big hug and asked him how he was, what he was up to, how his job was, and so on.

I introduced myself to him and he asked her how we knew each other.  She blurted, "Internet.  Just a silly Internet thing."

Hmmm, okay.  A minute or two later, the instructor stood in the middle of the room, clapped his hands a few times, and we all circled around him.

At the point that he told us to "partner up," I turned to Penny only to find that she had matched herself up with Stewart.  Okay.  I found someone else and danced.

We switched partners several times, and when I was matched up with Penny, it was obvious that she would have rather been dancing with someone else.

I took the opportunity to ask her, "Want to do dinner after this?"

She said, "I don't know.  I'll probably want to be here for a while."

I asked her, "We're on a date, right?"

She replied, "I guess.  I don't know," and then switched to someone else.

That answer was as good as, "No, we're not," as far as I was concerned, and so I focused on having as good a time as I could.

She seemed to spend a lot of time with Stewart and with other friends with whom she would dance, talk, and to whom she did not introduce me.

One of my more frequent dance partners that night was another young woman, Veronica, who actually seemed far more interesting than Penny.  I asked Veronica if she wanted to do dinner after the dance, and she said that she would.

When I found Penny to let her know that I was probably going to head out, Penny said, "Oh.  Date's over?"

I said, "I think it was over when you ignored me for most of the past two hours."

She said, "We've been dancing, haven't we?"

I explained, "This just doesn't feel like a date to me.  You're spending time with your friends, and I don't want to interrupt that if that's more important to you."

"My friends dance here.  I can't control that.  You expect me to ignore them, to give up on them and just have you be the center of my universe?  Well excuse me, Daniel, but we only just met!"

I said, "That's fine.  Have a good time with them.  I'm going."

"I'm not going to want to hang out anymore with you," she said, "This is your last chance."

I said, "Okay," and left with Veronica.  It was the right choice, and that's the end of that.