Oh Mystic - my heart breaks to hear this! Seriously. I lucked out and joined the univerisity social ballroom dance club many, many, moons ago. The emphasis was on lead and follow and changing partners every song. They had many multi-leveled socials so you had to get used to dancing with many people and styles and many of us became pretty decent at dancing. It was an amazing way to meet people. It is where I met Mr. Qwerty. When we left the club (I was pregnant with DD), they had switched to teaching international style with emphasis on competitions. We have seen the spontaneity of the dancing decrease as people just practised with their partners. There was also more collisions on the dance floor as people would do their choreographed sequences of moves with no regard for the people around them and no clue how to modified their dancing even if they wanted to avoid the other couples. And disasters if one person forgot their steps, the other couldn't lead/follow the partner until they were back on track.
Have you really given up on the couples' dancing? Could I interest you in trying Argentine Tango (and don't take it from the ballroom studios)?