Being a dancer (lindy hop) with a large number of dancers in my social circle, dancing is actually a frequent source of tension among many couples around me.
Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
And don’t get me started on lindy hop vs west coast swing.
The sad thing is that (for the most part) I don't think the westies really hate on the lindy hoppers much. You can see, admittedly older, clips[1] of dancers throwing in a bit of lindy, balboa, and shag in top level comps. Of course, this is Sylvia Sykes, so maybe that's an exception.
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This unnerves me. My partner could and would dance all day, anywhere, any scenario. I have to be unbelievably drunk to come close to anything resembling dancing. Any event we go to together that involves dancing is intensely emotionally debilitating to me for that reason, and sometimes I worry that it's a basal insurmountable incompatibility between us.
I'm puzzled where this comes from, since they're entirely different scenes. On a social dance night, or say, a festival, one may find Blue/Balboa/Lindy Hop (and possibly Shag), but hardly Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing, since the music is different.
Edit: Actually, the message that the article sends is exactly what happens - dancers try other dances, then they share how they've integrated them into their dance, or how interesting is anyway to try something different - as opposed to intellectual condescension.
> Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
There surely are occurrences of this, but I wouldn't describe the phenomenon as common. It implies that a romantic relationship is based entirely on dancing, which I don't think is frequent; also, the vast majority of the dancers leave the scene within 3/4 years.
I've personally lived the "mismatch of interest", but it ended up like any other separate hobby in the context of a couple.
It’s reflected by polling the crowd. There are way more women in relationships out dancing than there are men out dancing in relationships. Single men dominate the numbers when it comes to dancing.
This is why I don’t really recommend it to most men as a way to meet women. It’s lopsided numbers and it’s hard to stand out in a good way as a beginner - in most dance scenes anyway. That said, if you have a lot of time to kill and are big on learning new skills… it can pan out but it’s a multi-year endeavor that often doesn’t go anywhere.