Could partner dancing really be a solo activity?

[Caro]

A thought for debate.

In partner dancing, we always put the emphasis on the fact that this is a 2 persons activity, 2 people connecting together and dancing.
May be it’s just me in my post-southport blues, but I have been wondering if (multiple) partner dancing really wasn’t a solo activity. Let me explain.

Obviously what makes a dance is 2 people connecting in some way that they will produce something coordinated, which might even appear as a bit of magic to the ‘muggle’ eye. Now during a social event, you will dance with many different people. The more you ‘connect’ with a partner, the more likely you will think ‘wow this dance was fab’.
First level of connection (to me as a follower) is to respond to my lead – i. e. concentrating on my partner and doing what he wants me to do. Speaking the same (body) language with its codes: tension, compression, spins etc.
The second level is connecting through the music: making (vertical) sense of what I am hearing. There as a follower I need: a. to understand pretty quickly which bit of the music (like which instrument for example) my partner wants to interpret (assuming here that my partner is interpreting the music and not just doing random moves to a beat) and respond to that; and b. if I hear something different that I want to interpret, do it in a way that will not bother my lead (i.e. not destroying the connection). Now this can be difficult if we are not hearing the same thing and I might not be able to recognise what he is doing if I am blinded (‘deafed’) by something else in the music. This will create a tension between us and we will not connect that much.
To me, the dances that are fab are those when we both hear the same thing and interpret the music in the same fashion.

But then, even if you manage a great connection, it is pretty much impossible to tell what is going through your partner’s mind. He/She might be totally absorbed in the music, or being thinking ‘that move would have worked better here’ or ‘I wonder if I left the lights on at home’ or ‘my partner didn’t recognise I was doing this and messed up there’ or ‘I didn’t expect this’ or whatever.
Even if you give plenty of eye contact and smiles, there’s no way your minds will ever connect (or is there?).
The fact that we usually dance just 1 or 2 tracks with somebody then move on to a different partner and repeat that all night doesn’t help obviously.

Which brought me to the conclusion that although we are always looking for that perfect connection with a partner, we will never achieve it. When you dance, you are first and foremost alone, trying to connect with another person through a few square centimeters of skin and a tune. But you have your own and unique way of hearing and understanding the music, and your own and unique way of responsing to that (your style).
So are we - like kids running after a rainbow to touch it – vainly dancing after a pipedream?