My hobby was getting fairly expensive.
You know—between the dresses, the travel, the tickets.
Turns out dancing across state lines is not a fiscally responsible coping mechanism.

My exchange attendance started to slow down.
Not because I was tired of it.
Because my bank account started sending passive-aggressive alerts.

I went to another exchange in Denver. This one was a fusion exchange.
Which is when someone says, “What if we took two dances people already struggle with… and made them harder?”

Tango and Blues.
Zamba and Blues.
Dubstep and Blues.

Dubstep was my favorite.
While most of the class looked like they were trying to solve a murder with their feet, my partner and I got it.
So much so that the instructors called us to the front to dance for everyone.

This was the only time—the only time—I was ever singled out for praise at an exchange.
Outside of my outfits.
Apparently sequins are my strongest technical skill.

I vividly remember the restrooms at that exchange.
They were stocked with tampons, breath mints, and condoms.
Not available.
Curated.

They were not pretending this was about dance.
This was a pop-up festival of poor decisions with a live DJ.

I also vividly remember not hooking up with anyone that weekend.
Mostly because I was sharing a hotel room with an aggressively Mormon girl.
The kind who attends exactly one blues exchange and immediately appoints herself Minister of Blues for the State of Utah.

Within weeks, she was teaching.
With confidence I have still never known.

The next time I went to Denver, I danced with a guy I’d partnered with a few times.
Good connection.
Decent lead.

Until he tried to kiss me mid-dip.

I turned my head.
He tried again.
I dodged again.

The third time, apparently feeling bold, he grabbed my sweaty face in his sweaty hands…
…and licked the side of it.

Full. Tongue. Swipe.

Like a dog claiming furniture.

I walked off the floor before the song ended and avoided him the rest of the night.
Again, I wished I had that level of confidence.

Then there was St. Louis.

I didn’t want to crash at a stranger’s house, and I didn’t want to pay for a hotel, so I posted online looking for someone to split costs.
I got one response.
From a guy I barely knew.

I made everything extremely clear.
Just the room.
Just the rental car.
Just expenses.

No subtext.
No imagination.

He imagined anyway.

The first night—after discovering I was not, in fact, part of the amenities—he went out, found a young woman who was more inclined to entertain, and brought her back to our room.

Apparently, I was meant to vacate.
So they could… collaborate.

I declined to leave, but offered to take a long shower.
That’s all the space I was giving them for a room I had paid 50% of.
I was tired and wanted to sleep.

And that’s how I ended up with an uninvited third roommate who did not split the cost of the room.

The next morning, I learned he was vegan.
Not “easygoing vegan.”
Not “I’ll eat fries.”

This was a man who could not morally share air with a chicken bone.

And since he had rented the car, he was in charge of where we – him, and me, and the plus one – went to eat.

I gave up my dreams of St. Louis barbecue while he lectured us over deep-fried tofu drowned in syrupy sauce about how he was the ethical pinnacle of humanity.

Yes. Thank you.
Please shut up.

That weekend included a trip to the City Museum.
Which I learned is not a museum.
It’s an old shoe factory turned into a giant playground.

Three-story slide.
Outdoor ball pit.
Human-sized hamster wheel.

Best part of the trip.
Hands down.
No notes.

Denver came around again. Leah wanted to go.
I’d met a very nice French girl, Aurelia, who wanted to share housing.
The three of us got an Airbnb.

One queen bed.
One couch.

Leah called the couch.

I hadn’t shared a bed—with sleeping intentions—in a long time, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Turns out after abusing my body for twelve hours straight, sleep finds you.

I passed out instantly.

Aurelia was thrilled.

“I love sleeping with you!” she announced loudly.
“You don’t move at all!”

I had to shush her.
Not because I’d be ashamed to sleep with a woman.
But because I didn’t want it getting around that I would be an inactive participant.

Then there was Portland.

We stayed with a dancer friend of Leah’s.
Things I was not told beforehand:

One: Massive dogs.
Dog hair everywhere. My allergies filed a formal complaint.

Two: Two small children. One potty training.
Which meant a naked toddler wandering dangerously close to my open suitcase of expensive dresses.

Three: The house was filled with dancers.
More dancers than space.
Leah and I were assigned a pull-out bed in the basement.

The frame was broken.
It occasionally collapsed.

I slept in a chair.

Four: She was a swinger.
The house was very sex positive.
People hooking up.
Sharing showers.

At least one strange man felt it was appropriate to wake me in the night to proposition me.

Sir.
I am asleep in a chair at a geometry-defying angle.
Please read the room.

I don’t remember the dancing that weekend.
I remember the ravioli restaurant down the road.
Everything was ravioli.

Cheesecake ravioli changed me.

At some point I started hosting dancers at my place.

The first time, I hadn’t even signed up.
I showed up to a dance and saw three wide-eyed people with luggage and a volunteer panicking.

I asked what was going on.
This was a mistake.

Suddenly, I was a solution.

I told them I lived forty minutes away, public transportation was terrible, and I had to work.
They could stay if they were desperate—but transportation was on them.

They agreed.
They did not mean it.

I ruined their weekend by not being their Uber.

Oh well.

Another time, a guy I’d been flirting with asked to stay—with implications.
I agreed.

Two weeks before the dance, he told me he’d gotten engaged.

That changed things.

So, I signed up to host more people.

All I remember is that the roads were foggy and icy, and I was convinced I was going to die and take three strangers with me.
Also, the engaged guy knew who my brother was from his website.

Small world.

The last exchange I went to was back in Denver.
I stayed with a local host. His name looked familiar when I got the assignment.

When he opened the door, I felt relief.

“Oh good,” I said immediately. “I thought you might be this guy I once shared a hotel room with—total creep—brought a random girl back to have sex while I was still there. It was awful.”

I watched his face fall.

It was him.

I had walked into his home and casually narrated the story of him being a sleazy asshole.
To his face.
In his foyer.

That was… an exquisitely uncomfortable weekend.

Looking back, I’m not surprised I stopped going to exchanges.

They were expensive.
Exhausting.
And I kept walking into situations that were more traumatic than charming.

The dancing itself was magic.
But the weekends around it?

Those were… educational.

In the worst, funniest ways possible.