Dancing isn’t just movement.
It’s electricity.
A rush of music, colors, lights, and scents—so intoxicating it blurs into a single, euphoric moment.
Maybe it’s not the kind of joy you find by looking within.
But it’s joy nonetheless—pure, undiluted, and holy. And after almost every party, I thank God for it.
Why do I love dancing salsa and bachata so much?
Well…
For starters…
I love women.
Plain and simple.
After dancing with thousands of women and having disdain for more than a few males in the scene, I finally realized how deep this goes for me.
I realized I don’t like men.
I think this particular trauma has a direct line straight back to my father.
Men were cruel—unlike women.
I think it’s remarkable.
Sometimes, It makes no sense whatsoever that I was born into the family I had. I’m vastly more empathetic than all of them put together.
I’ve been this way since the very beginning.
I was always noticeably more sensitive than other boys.
It made me a target.
I got called the F-word a lot.
That shook me. And I spent the next 30 years trying to be tougher than I am by nature.
But women have always accepted me.
And I love them so much.
What passes for friendship among men would never fly among women.
In my experience, men are FAR less loyal to each other.
FAR less empathetic.
FAR more self-absorbed.
FAR more out of touch with their emotions.
When I ponder women, I see many people who do not take for granted that their freedom is still new. Women pursue education much more vigorously than men.
I’m out on the dance floor; some of the most unassuming cuties have the biggest degrees. I feel like a street rat next to these princesses with PhDs, but I don’t mind. I feel secure in my intellect.
Men are far more complacent.
By the time the fellas reach 25, the women are far out of their league because they’ve been disciplined and dedicated—instead of playing video games this whole time.
This is a narrative of my creation that, at best, can only approximate the truth…
But I’m merely reflecting on what I see when I go out. I see the growing rage men feel toward women in the manosphere online — the incels, the pickup artists, etc.
Maybe it’s my unique perspective because I’m a marketer. But I look at the pickup artist “industry,” if you want to call it that, and I often reflect on who they’re targeting.
Millions of young men are in their late teens and early twenties.
Sometimes, I can look at a guy and tell if he’s one of those types by the goofy way he behaves around women.
Usually not. Still… I’ll be at a cafe or the library. I’m on my phone. I see another one of those pickup artist ads targeting me.
Then, I’ll look around at the younger males all around me.
Most of them are getting targeted with the same ad, too.
And a vast number of them are indoctrinated in those forums.
I think the recent uptick of these types of communities speaks to the palpable frustration men are feeling about women and their inability to connect with them and get their sexual needs met.
Generally, I prefer speaking with a woman than a man. Women seem far more in touch with their feelings, which makes them more authentic.
I also hate male culture.
I’m never going to be the guy who watches football. Or any sport, for that matter. I much prefer doing a sport to watching one—any day of the week.
When I try to connect with men, my go-to is through sport.
At least we can invest our energy into something positive.
I say all this to give you a bit of context.
I think being a man speaking about women, it’s very easy to run the risk of coming across in as sexist or vapid at the very least.
But I’m being sincere when I say that I love women.
Not in an “I need to sleep with every woman” kind of way.
By nature and/or nurture, this is the type of man I became. I think it’s pretty standard in the dance community to find men who affectionately love the ladies. I’m not unique.
Can you blame me?
They’re the best.
One day, it dawned on me that it was no coincidence that I became a salsa dancer if I loved women this much. This was my calling.
Salsa has always called my name.
I intuitively understood that it would enable me to be exactly where I wanted to be for most hours of the day: in the arms of a beautiful woman—thousands of attractive women.
Just the way women smell.
Let’s start there.
You go out, and the air is filled with scents that sing to my heart and fill me with delight.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed is slowly getting to understand women better.
Dancing has been a game-changer for that.
However, I also did a pretty intense course of study on women while I worked for Tony Robbins — to speak more directly to his female audience.
I learned a lot of eye-opening shit about women during that time.
One thing is that women have far less free time than men.
It creates a natural pressure on them to want to save time.
And women hate getting dirty.
Men can do dirty jobs all day long. That’s not how women are raised. Being messy is way more frowned upon.
This is why the Swifer became such a hit when it was introduced.
Women want to reduce their housework as much as possible because they are busy and don’t want to be bogged down by it, which is still primarily their burden.
I saw this firsthand with my ex-wife. She passionately hated using a mop.
We had one of those old-school mops you had to wring with your bare hands. She was staunchly against it.
I’m so eternally grateful for all the lessons women have taught me. Over my lifetime, yes. But definitely over the last couple of years as a dancer.
One thing I’ve learned is that women are vastly different from men, and men very much take that for granted.
Every woman has more in common with every other woman than any man.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve worked hard not to be at least a little bit compassionate when speaking about my exes to my new girlfriends. Although they may appear rivals, they have far more in common than not.
I discovered something about women that blew my mind. Every woman speaks a secret language that every other woman understands, but most men are entirely oblivious to.
Most hilariously, I learned when I was dancing that ALMOST without fail, every single woman would tell you precisely what she thought about the dance at the very end.
But NONE of them will do it verbally.
If you oversee their body language, it’s as clear as day.
1. If you give her a good dance, she will ask your name (because she wants to remember you and talk about you to her friends.)
2. If she hates the dance may end a few seconds early.
She won’t linger — she’ll B-line away from you as soon as the dance is over.
3. If you give her a fantastic dance, that’s easy — she will be beaming joy and wonder throughout the dance, and after, she’ll have a deep gratitude for you. I’ve found that most women are hungry for a specific type of connection that is rare.
4. Once, I gave a girl such a good dance that she grabbed my face and almost kissed me before she came to her senses.
So, why do I love dancing salsa and bachata so much?
Most people don’t get to see the world from my vantage point, which is too bad because the view from where I stand is stunning.
Here I am…
I’d rather be in no place than in the company of a pretty lady who dressed her best to be here. (I don’t judge women’s looks. All women are beautiful in my eyes.)
I realized recently that I’m not just a dancer. I’m an artist — and dancing is my art form.
As part of that, I want to give my partners an otherworldly experience.
I will take a quick second to mention this is all subjective.
I have a ton of people who love dancing with me. And there’s a thriving community of people who do not.
But either way, there are a lot of women who vibe with what I’m trying to accomplish with them on the dance floor. I make them feel desired in ways they seem like they aren’t getting.
I dance with this one girl who stares deeply into my eyes the whole time, and she fully surrenders to me. We’re usually so enthralled we don’t speak a word to each other.
I furrow my brow and look at another with passion in my eyes. And she’s giving me back,
“Yes — give me those sexy eyes all night long.”
She knows this is an act. I’m not trying to seduce her — but rather to create a three-minute love story with her…
Where the whole world vanishes, and it’s me and her… And I’m making her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
Only a minority of women are willing to connect with me this deeply. I don’t mind.
I would have never pictured myself here when I was living in a dead town in the middle of nowhere while being stuck in a dangerously codependent relationship.
At the same time, I was helping my wife care for her 95-year-old grandfather.
Yet here I am, and this is legit my very concept of heaven.
When I die, just keep the jams rolling. I’m just going to keep dancing.
I came to understand after a certain point that my father’s sins bothered me so much — so deeply — that I felt like I had to atone for them.
Having grown up in a very misogynist place, and after considering some of the heinous acts against women that are commonplace…
I feel a duty to do my best to treat women well.
It makes me feel better.
It feeds my soul.
It honors my mother.
And believe me, I’m far from perfect. I have to atone for my sins, too.
There are all sorts of nuances to salsa dancing that you could take decades to notice.
One of them was that…
I’m an expert at having fun.
How cool is that?
It’s Saturday night, and there’s music playing; it’s almost impossible not to have fun.
If you go to a salsa party and don’t have fun, you’re the problem.
Later, it dawned on me that as a lead who gets to dance with an abundant supply of women… If this is, as I say, my calling…
Then, my literal purpose in life is to put smiles on women’s faces and bring joy to the masses.
What an honor.
Until next time,
Anton
Dancer, Writer, Buddhist
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