Occasionally two women will dance together for a couple dance like a schottische or polka, even though there are male partners available. The less frequently crossed boundary is men dancing with other men. The few contra figures that involve two men dancing together generally involve turning one another arm-wrestle style, with hands clasped and elbows bent. Besides that, men rarely dance figures with one another and even more rarely choose to dance with one another as partners. This rule of gender roles remains strong, despite the odd fact that our monthly dances regularly attract more men dancers than women.
Surplus men prefer to be wallflowers than to dance as partners.
The chuckles and attention they attract underscore the fact that they are the exceptions to the rule. When newcomers attend a contra dance for the first time they are walking into something like a different culture. They find there are new rules for some familiar interactions while rules for other interactions remain intact. Naturally, not everyone who comes to a dance for the first time becomes a contra dancer. For some, contras just aren t their kind of fun.