In the late 1980s, I had a college friend who went contra dancing who tried for a couple of years to get me to go. I had no reluctance, but I normally had other commitments on Saturday evenings, so it required extra effort and I never tried especially hard to make it happen. The summer between junior and senior year, my girlfriend and I went to the Hudson River Clearwater Folk Festival and wandered into the contra dance held as part of the event. We had no clue, of course, but it was fun enough and now I knew what my friend had been trying to drag me to for two years. So when I got back to campus in the fall, I told my friend to let me know when it was so I could schedule around it, and I went to and enjoyed a few dances my senior year. However, it probably would not have stuck except that the same friend and I both moved to DC after graduation, and we started going to the Glen Echo Sunday dances occasionally as a way to get together. After a while, I found I was going most weeks anyway, whether my friend was also coming or not.
(Incidentally, the friend is still a good friend, though no longer a contra dancer. My daughter and I stayed with her and her family last summer while touring colleges.) David St. Paul MN
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