Evening Latte

I primarily go to concerts for the music (I almost always go solo), but there is also a unique charm in sharing the experience with people who have come together because of commonality, even something as small as musical taste. However, as an asexual person (“ace”), there’s always some trepidation when I’m vibing with someone at a concert because experience suggests there’s a decent chance they will eventually want to hook up. This is the story of the one time I found someone who aligned perfectly with my wavelength.

In March of 2017, I attended a concert by The Wood Brothers at a local venue called the Crystal Ballroom. As I crossed the street to the building, a small group was approaching on the sidewalk to my right. I glanced over and met the eyes of a rather attractive woman. She gave a small smile, and I returned it. Buoyed by the small self-esteem boost, I got in line, entered the venue, got a cup of their darkest beer, and went to my standard spot: ~1/3 of the way back from the stage and as close to equidistant from the main speakers as possible (best chance for good acoustics).

The opener was good, but more people than usual had stayed in the back during the opener. As everyone moved toward the front, I eventually heard people filling in behind me and to my left. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the same group I’d passed on the sidewalk. I didn’t look at the woman specifically, just noted it as interesting and went back to waiting.

The Wood Brothers came out and started their set. I had gotten the ticket during a random Bandsintown session, so I wasn’t very familiar with them, but they were good musicians and were generally up-tempo and fun.

I’m a hyperaware person normally, and concerts ratchet it up a few levels: there’s just so much to notice and track. Who’s had one too many drinks, who pushes through the crowd, who’s trying to hook up with who, who may be having a bad time, who’s so into the music that they don’t notice (or care) they’re knocking into people around them, on and on. I can happily spend a mediocre concert ignoring the music and fully focusing on the ever-evolving soap opera that is the audience. I also try to match or accommodate the movements of people around me and make room for others moving through.

After several songs and during my normal once-every-ten-seconds-or-so scan of the area around me, I noticed the eye-contact woman had moved up alone: she was to my left with one person between us. I assumed she was trying to find a better view. After the next song ended, the person between us left, and she shifted toward me. Now I was paying attention and trying to read body language with glances. It seemed pretty coincidental that she’d smiled that smile at me outside, then her group had ended up right next to me (in a 1,500-person room), then she’d left her friends to stand alone next to me, but it was still entirely possible she was simply trying to see more of the band.

At times during the next song or two, I was transported back to a junior high night in a friend’s basement when I sat next to a girl I liked on the couch, but I didn’t know if she liked me. Same as then, this woman was steadily moving into my space, and when our elbows finally touched, I was so afraid it was unwelcome that I instinctively snapped my arm back an inch or two. But kept getting closer until our arms were brushing nearly every time we swayed with the music. I’m laughing at myself for writing this like elbow-to-elbow contact is basically handing someone a hotel room key. My only defense: initial physical contact with strangers seems significant.

Ace alarm bells started blaring in my head. The memories played like a worst-of reel: kisses awkwardly turned away, the very clear insinuation that someone felt they had wasted their night flirting with me, trying to explain to a drunk woman in a loud bar that I really was sure I didn’t want to go back to her place even though I wasn’t in a relationship.

The fact we hadn’t actually looked at each other yet during the show weirdly gave me hope. If someone is trying to hook up with me, they normally make it pretty clear by either 1) looking me in the eye/directly addressing me to communicate it or 2) going over the top to convey it with body language (intentional touch, getting very close face-to-face, grinding while dancing, etc.). She wasn’t doing those things, so I decided to see where things would (wouldn’t?) go.

Once it seemed we were both comfortable with contact, she moved even closer until her right shoulder was in front of the left side of my chest. She leaned back, so we had to start matching movements to keep from bumping into each other. It had been a while since I’d had to read and react to someone’s body movements to get and keep rhythm, and it experiencing that again was fun even outside of the intimacy/tension.

For two or three songs, we swayed and moved together with her leaning back into my chest, eventually only offset enough that my nose wasn’t bonking the back of her head. She was fairly tall, so I was sure she could feel my breath on her shoulder and neck, and we got familiar enough with the other’s movements that we easily followed one another. I had accepted that I was going to have an awkward conversation at some point in the evening, but she wasn’t making any overt moves. No reaching up to touch my hair/neck, no reaching behind to pull me closer, no turning around to directly engage, etc. And I was frankly having a lot of fun, so I was content to keep it going and accept the consequences later.

After a song ended, she casually stepped away and headed toward the back of the room. The parts of my chest and thigh where we’d been touching felt surprisingly cold, and I was filled with a mixture of relief and anxiety. She didn’t try to kiss me! That was so pleasant and validating! Did I just do something that crossed a line or made her feel uncomfortable? Did she get bored with me? Is she coming back?

There are almost always lines at the bars and bathrooms at that venue, so I didn’t expect her back for at least a few minutes. That came and went. I was half-listening to the music and both dreading and looking forward to a hand on my shoulder, a shoulder on my chest, or something else. I’d glanced to my left and right many times, but finally craned my neck to look behind me, and I saw her. She was back with her friends and standing in front of a guy with his arms wrapped around her. He was in their group, but I hadn’t seen any indication they were together until then.

Brief panic over having possibly offended him quickly turned to confusion. She’d been fully leaned back into my chest for at least ten minutes directly in front of him, so there’s no way he could have missed it. Neither seemed interested in me as much as each other and the music, so I split my thoughts between enjoying the performance and wondering how all this fit together/made sense.

As the concert continued, they all moved a little to the left, and I glanced out of the corner of my eye a few times. The only thing that seemed notable about the two of them was that they weren’t moving at all. No dancing, no swaying with the beat, nothing. Based on that, my best (but still only semi-plausible) guess is she liked to dance/move at concerts, but he wouldn’t do that, so for a part of the show, she’d find someone to vibe with before rejoining him. It’s also possible they were platonic-but-intimate friends or in an open relationship. Whatever their situation, nothing she and I did seemed to cause a problem.

A detail I really like: we only made eye contact once (on the sidewalk outside the venue), and we never spoke. All the communication during the concert was with our bodies, and she didn’t have eyes for me once she rejoined her group. The boundaries of this slice of time felt too clean to be real: we found each other in a big crowd and had this fun, natural, intimate connection, but once time ran out, everything went back to normal. I’m too cynical to call it something like “magical,” but the disconnect between those ten to fifteen minutes and all the other interactions I’ve had in similar situations is…significant. I’ll call it serendipitous.

Whatever the circumstances: thank you, whoever you were/are. Thank you for reading my cues, respecting my boundaries, and meeting me exactly where I was that night. I’m very grateful I got to experience it once.