I am not a good dancer. I want to make that very clear. I started attending dances in an era of grunge, bad hip-hop and bump and grind music. (If I use my grade school years as a point of reference, I can also refer to the Running Man, but that’s terrible so I choose not to.) I didn’t embrace the mosh pit, I don’t have the rhythm to dance in any respectable way to hip-hop and thus I am left with bumping and grinding. My dance moves can pretty much be boiled down to:
- Slow dance swaying, a la junior high
- Jumping up and down, which has some variations but is really just jumping
- Grinding, which can include more nuanced steps but I’m willing to call a spade a spade
In summary, my dance moves are lame. But. I do enjoy dancing. While I avoid all scripted dancing (line dancing, the Electric Slide, the Macarena, etc.) because it’s seems an impossibility with my inability to keep a beat, it is fun to bust a move out on a dance floor. (Yes, I said “bust a move.” And, for the record, the song by that name was one of my first music purchases.) Currently my dancing is pretty much limited to weddings, of which I average about one a year.
I have been campaigning for dancing outings but my audience for the campaigns is Wonder Boy and he is very resistant. I think I’ve negatively affected my chances of going out dancing by trying to initiate dancing at (purely non-dance) bars, mostly while intoxicated. Ah well.
Last night Wonder Boy expressed one reason why he might not be comfortable going out dancing.
“So I think when we dance what I maybe need is a little less grinding.”
Once I stopped laughing at how funny this was, I started assessing the situation. If I take grinding out of my repertoire, all I am left with is swaying and jumping. So I am left with some choices.
Do I ignore Wonder Boy’s logic and dance as I always have? This isn’t unreasonable. He doesn’t really like to dance anyway and it’s not like he’s busting out with some Michael Jackson moves on the dance floor. Do I try to learn some current dances, of which I know none. I can always start Jersey Shore fist pumping, because that’s easy.
This year I am in two weddings, one in May and the other in October. I have five months to pacify Wonder Boy, modify my dance moves or introduce Wonder Boy to the world of bumping and grinding.
Note: So much of this sounded dirty and that was not my intention.
