This has been on my mind lately. I was driving through a small town recently. Up ahead, the street I was on ended in a T. In the distance, in the row of buildings at the point of the T, I could see people inside a business of some kind. It had a large open doorway -- maybe for a former car repair place. And a lot of windows. The owner of the business was smart about using this visual fishbowl that all the oncoming traffic couldn't help but look into when approaching.

As I got a bit closer, I could see a lot of people inside. I thought they were dancing, and in one of those instantaneous moments of a thought, I felt a sense of pleasant surprise. Seems like people don't often get together anymore to do something other than just talk. And we spend more time physically alone, but mentally connected by machines to people many miles away.

But as I got even closer, I could see that nobody was dancing. Everyone there was working out, aka exercising, in their own independent separate spaces. Not interacting with each other at all.

Wouldn't it be nice if people started going to dances again? It's such an enjoyable way to teach and learn social skills, etiquette, manners, empathy, group effort and accomplishment, conversation, community, and so many other worthwhile things. Including enjoying the sounds of melodic, harmonious, rhythmic music, and exercise.

There are a few places in some cities where all kinds of music and dancing, by people from all over the world, takes place, but it seems like those places are becoming less common as the years go by, and the custom of going to them, whether by yourself or with another person or a group, is too.

It used to be very common for young people to meet their future spouses at dances. "Going To The Dance" was a central part of healthy communities for... come to think of it, millennia. All over the world. How strange that it could disappear.