Dance Partners'...

My newest dance partner is nice. However, she seems to care about what her little clique think about her more than being my dance partner. Even though I proposed the idea of us being partners, as we are both very tall and it would be very hard for her to get a male counterpart, I am beginning to regret it. I took a risk, the major one being she is a trained Irish dancer. Irish dancers are very stiff and even though she has had some ballet, she can be quite stiff. Also she isn’t putting as much energy into the relationship as I am, I believe that partnering is 65% trust, how can she let me do lifts when she doesn’t trust me and how can I let her mount my back when I don’t trust her? I have tried to spend time with her but she seems to only want to do this when her clique are not around. In her clique, there is one other girl, a singer and a boy, an actor, the actor does not particularly like me and so neither does the singer so my partner’s loyalty is split, well it should be but it is clear where it lies. This feeds into more distrust. The funny part to me is that if I walked out of the partnership I would be on smooth sailing to another partner. However, my partner would be screwed, as I said before she is very tall for a dancer and most male dancers would look ridiculous beside her and find her impossible to carry. I however do not. Therefore, her snubbing really is not doing her any favours, except she is the only dancer I can be paired with in my college course. There is another female dancer in the year but she is strictly solo and hates partnering as she can’t handle lifts, mounts or even dips, so if I am stuck until September too. Is it worth risking it by telling her that if she keeps up her rudeness I will quite? Will she realize that loosing me will hinder her more than it will affect me? On the other hand, could I be reading into the whole thing and blowing it out of purporting in my mind? Is there anything I can do to make her want to work on our personal relationship?

Help!

Love,

S