A thousand temporary escapes

The last two years were a case study of sorts.  I've never been so unsure of what I was getting into.  I stayed mostly on the sidelines, a silent observer of repartees and flirtations, wandering eyes and double takes, glances held too long.  This was the surface where noise and excesses permeated.  All sweaty in the dance floor dancing with a stranger or a friend you've recently met.  Numbers and, sometimes, salivas are easy and muted transactions under strobe lights and loud music.

Why are we there?
Different reasons.  Different excuses.

Some could be quite upfront.  A hookup.  A date.  A serious relationship.  Others could be a little indirect.  I'm here with friends.  To dance.  Just hangout and drink.  To have fun.  The most common and vaguest of reasons.  It straddles both the clean and the naughty side.

It goes on, repeatedly and repetitively, every Saturday night.  On some days you tell yourself, you're gonna stop; you're tired.  All those sweating and moving around the dance floor had given you a thousand temporary escapes.  But they all come back.  These demons, the stress and problems of a cyclical life.  The loneliness and displacement in a world we feel so astutely out of place.

It makes me wonder.  Do we ever really find what we're looking for in those places?

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