May 22, 2025
Out of school I got a job doing low level software sales in Boston, MA. Cost of living in Boston is high and my salary was low. All my apartment furnishings were from one of the alleys in the area. The trash of many people were my treasures. One time, I was walking home from a bar and found a pizza box laying on a ledge that ran along the sidewalk. I was very pleased to find a full pizza which I immediately claimed. Eventually I made it back to my apartment. The alcohol must have finally taken its hold on me, because I tripped going up the stairs and the pizza fell out of the box onto the ground. Still ate it for dinner. Lunch the next day too.
I liked the company I worked for and my coworkers. We would usually hang out after work drinking Miller Lites and doing pickleback shots. Sometimes it would drift into later nights at places that had enough open space for people to dance.
I had a good friend when I was living in Boston. He and I were similar in a lot of ways but we moved to different cities and work for different companies now. He had a bit of a habit saying nonconventional things in a nonchalant manner that had a tendency to stick around in my head long after hearing them.
One of them came on a night when after work drinks at an Irish pub bled into some sort of nightclub. The group was around 10 people. I was probably fed up with pretending to dance and said to him, “Fuck this. Why are we dancing right now.”
To which he responded, “I like dancing. It’s a different way of connecting to someone.”
I remember being really taken aback by his comment. If I were a cartoon, I would’ve acted liked I had just taken a bullet to the chest and fell to the ground. I think the shock came from the fact that I felt like his statement was very true and it was something I had never thought about before.
Too often experiences with people are just sterile formalities, recounting what you did over the weekend or the weather forecast. Conversations can be forced and awkward.
What I really appreciate about my friend’s comment is the revelation that you’re not boxed into a singular way of connecting to another person. Most of the time, connection with another person is made via conversation.
Some of the deepest connections are made through shared experiences, sometimes without words. It’s the hum of an impact drill when your parents were in town and built a shed in the backyard. The buzz of a boat engine on the Mississippi delta at 5am while your father-in-law smokes a Marlboro Red. The shit feeling of parting ways with your boys after a weekend and not knowing when you’re going to see them again. Making eye contact with your future wife across the way in a college bar at 2am and doing nothing but smile.
Evidently, I really like dancing now. I mainly focus on dancing at weddings, but I’ll mess around in the kitchen here and there.
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