Shall we braindance?

So why is this blog called Brain Dancing?

One day, as I was lying in bed in that space somewhere between consciousness and sleep, I was thinking of what is typically considered the ultimate in female sex appeal, and I thought:

Lap Dancing.

So I thought of Brain Dancing as the intelligent form of female sexuality.

I initially wanted to write about my own experiences as a smart, competent, accomplished woman trying to find an identity for herself in a world that values women only for their sexuality, youth and beauty.

But then as Brain Dancing rapidly evolved into a discussion of online dating and my experiences with it, I started to think of braindancing in the sense of what we do when we bond electronically, in cyberspace, to the mythic idea of a romantic partner.

For centuries, probably since the beginning of life as we know it, and until this very day, dancing was the core mating ritual for humans. By touching, moving, cheek to cheek, body to body, we could smell each other, brush against each other, feel our energetic connection. In the traditional spiral dance, which has forms in the Hindu and Celtic cultures, one could see and touch every other man and woman in the room in the span of an hour.

But in the cyber realm, when we’re online dating, we are dancing with our brains, not our bodies. We’re testing a spark…trying to see if any attraction exists…in a purely intellectual space.

It’s this very act of detachment, with a vast network of keys, screens, wires, cables and networks between us, that makes this Brain Dance so ridiculously incapable of determining if any real physical spark could possibly exist. It might in fact be the reason why the few people I know who did fall in love through a personal ad are either excellent writers who are adept at communicating in words -- or intellectual people who I'd say live more in their brains than their bodies.

Very few humans have the ability to communicate sexuality on a screen or a page. The rare ones who do we reward handsomely – they’re called Movie Stars, Rock Stars, Supermodels, Politicians, Advertising Executives and Best Selling Authors. Anybody who can broadcast sexuality to the masses has a rare and marketable talent.

And yet love is about narrow casting—finding just one person who you can connect with on a deep and meaningful level. I think it’s for this reason that Internet Dating doesn’t work reliably. Sometimes it works – and I think it works best for people who can broadcast their appeal. Or for someone very diligent and focused who uses the web to meet dozens of people and then through trial and error, finally find the one who they “click” with in the real world.