Dance for me my Darling, Dance!

I  once heard a story about a woman who went out to meet her  boyfriend  on certain nights of the week, and on those  nights  they would  go  dancing. The problem was she could never  be  sure  of exactly how he looked, she remembered him in fragments but  could never  visualise  him whole. So  every night she went  out  she would always dance  with men who reminded her of him in some  way.  The likeness  didn't have to be very much, perhaps the curve  of  his chin, the cut or colour of his hair, the type  of shoe or the way he moved, perhaps an ear lobe.

She danced with the stranger until her boyfriend came to pick her up. When he appeared, she always recognised him immediately and always fell in love with him all over again.

She  was  perfectly happy, as were the men she  danced  with  (at least for the duration of the dance). Her boyfriend, on the other hand  became  increasingly unhappy and he decided to  leave  her, which he did one day without telling her.

For some time he stayed away from her, but he was still unhappy and unhappiness  began to change him.

Gradually his  face became  morose and sad. Imperceptibly the shape of his body changed as he aged and put on weight.

Inexplicably, though inevitably,  he was drawn back to the woman, his former girlfriend, and the place where they had always met.

And every night he watched her dancing with a succession of strange men, and all the time she seemed to be waiting for someone which he desperately hoped would be him. At the end of every night he wished her goodnight and every night she remarked to him how he vaguely reminded her of himself and how they should dance sometime,

and he always agreed,

but never did.