Your first social: what to expect

A night where Latin music plays and people dance freely — no class, no choreography. Each song is danced with a different person, lasts about four minutes, and afterwards everyone goes their own way.

Many start with a short beginners class before opening the floor. If it is your first time, that class is the easiest way in: you leave it already knowing half the room.

You walk over and ask. There is no other ritual, and everyone does it with everyone: this is not flirting, it is dancing. In most places both men and women ask.

If they say no, it means nothing. People rest, they are thirsty, or they do not like that song. You say "sure" and ask someone else. Everyone gets turned down several times a night.

It is the universal first-night feeling and it is false. On a dance floor everyone is busy with their own song and their own partner. The people who have danced for years are not watching either: they have enough on their plate.

Dancing two basic steps for a whole song is perfectly fine. It is what half the room is doing.

Socials start late and fill up later still. If it says 10pm, at 10pm there are four people and the beginners class; the floor fills towards midnight.

For a first time it is worth going early: there is space, the music is quieter and it is easier to talk to someone.

Dropping into a social in a city you do not know is completely normal and nobody will treat you as an outsider. Say it is your first night there — it is the easiest conversation opener in the room, and people will tell you where else to go that week.

Half the room arrived on their own. This is not a place people come to in groups: you come to dance with people you do not know, so turning up alone does not put you at a disadvantage, it puts you in the majority.

If the idea makes you nervous, the class beforehand solves it completely: you walk out of it having danced with fifteen people who have already seen your face.

A social usually runs from ten or eleven until three or four. You do not have to stay to the end, and you do not have to tell anyone you are leaving.

Far less alcohol gets drunk than you would expect. You are dancing for four hours, and two drinks in you cannot hold the beat or lead cleanly. What you mostly see at the bar is water.