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My advice? Learn to partner dance. I always say it's the most fun you can have with modular arithmetic. I'm pretty introverted, but I've been an enthusiastic swing dancer for 17 years now. Start by taking classes. You'll meet a bunch of people. Also, there's a structure to the interactions there. You're all there to learn, you're all just starting out in the dance, you're all meeting each other for the first time, etc. After a few months, you'll start making friends from classes. Somewhere in your first 1-3 months of classes, you'll go out dancing socially, like to a bar, or a club, or a concert, etc. You'll meet more people there, too. Also, it's super fun! Another thing that has been great for me about dancing is that it's social, but it's not very verbal unless I want it to be. There have been many times I've felt drained and didn't want to spend a lot of energy holding up a conversation. On those nights, I'd go out for an evening of dancing and dance with 1 or 2 dozen different women and barely said more than "Would you like to dance?" and "Thank you for the dance." I'm a native English speaker, but I still find conversation draining sometimes. Dance gives me a way to get out of the house and interact with people and avoid staying in the house and compounding anxiety. Also, it's super fun! Pick a dance where people go out and dance socially at places other than dance studios (swing/lindy hop or salsa are your best bets. IMHO, lindy hop is far and away the best. Also, there are tons of guys in IT in lindy hop, so you'll fit right in.) Technically, people can ballroom dance anywhere, but in practice, at least in Chicago, there are no weekly ballroom events that I know of outside of ballroom dance schools. The reason I advise this is that classes are great for learning the dance and for having a social structure to rely on, but you also want to have unstructured social time with people you've been meeting in classes. Also, you'll meet more people this way and dancing socially is a ton of fun. If you have a weekly dance or two to go see friends at, it's easier to stick with classes than if you're taking classes so that you can get better for... taking more classes. |