Feeling: sleepy
Listening to: Vast - Last Temptation
Reading/Watching: going to see Master and Commander today, whee!

There's something I've been wondering: Why are people so afraid to dance?

Unless someone is relatively certain that their dance skills are above average, or there is a huge crush of people already gyrating, leaving them exactly six square inches of room to move, people just will not dance.

What are you afraid of? That the music will suddenly stop with that funny record-scratch noise from movie previews? That everyone will stare, point, and laugh? That your pants will fall around your ankles and you'll suddenly be flashing the room and your friends will ditch you and the IRS will take your house and your children will all be deformed because you dared to dance?

In a place like a club, chances are, you will never see any of these people ever again. If you catch someone's interest however, you might. So why not take a risk? Besides, to quote that silly adage, "People who mind don't matter, and people who matter don't mind."

Last night for Lynne's birthday party, we went to Buffalo Billiards and played several (fantastically bad) games of pool, had a drink or two, and then Lynne and I went to explore the dance floor in the next room, because our feet wouldn't hold still when the jukebox played.

In the next room, the music was blaring, the lights were swirling, and no one was dancing. People were standing around talking (because they're retarded and love to shout at each other), but the dance floor was completely empty.

I grabbed Lynne's hands and tried to pull her out to dance with me, hoping that perhaps people would join in once someone in the room grew a pair and got it started. She acted like I was trying to drag her into a Japanese torture chamber, shaking her head and protesting violently, refusing to budge from her safe corner. So I danced alone, just enjoying the music, and was out there for at least ten or fifteen minutes before I realized no one was ever going to join me.

I have no idea whether I'm a good dancer or not, no idea whether I look all cool and graceful and sexy, or whether I'm some spastic freak throwing her limbs in all directions (I'm guessing the latter). But it's not about what other people think you look like, it's about how you feel when you're doing it, especially once other people join in and we can all be spastic freaks together.

I finally gave up when I was able to persuade Lynne to dance for exactly thirty seconds before she retreated again, laughing self-consciously. So we left, because she wasn't having fun (and neither was I, by that time... if I wanted to dance alone I'd do it in my bedroom with better choice of music).

Sigh. I guess it's like public speaking- people will always have weird irrational fears about it. But honestly, how many times have you seen someone dance so horribly that you think, "S/he shouldn't be doing that, no matter how much fun it is, because s/he is so bad that it might rub off on the other dancers and make us all look like crippled, disoriented ducks."

And even if you do think that, does that make the person dancing stop having a good time? I think not.

Comments? 1 so far...
Not a Diaryland member? Sign the Guestbook.