I don’t enjoy anything about it. I can dance - I did three years’ dance training when I was at uni. But I am so bloody self-conscious that I hate every second of it, unless I’m absolutely wankered drunk or on Class A drugs, or the room is nearly pitch dark.
There is no free expression in what I’m doing either; I have to concentrate very hard to coordinate all my limbs and not neglect moving one or two of them, and I tend to have to copy what someone else is doing. I hate it. Like MichaelEMouse I prefer a dance with a known set of steps. I don’t mind ceilidhs and the like. But a club setting? It’s a horrible experience for me. Fuck that shit, I’ll be at the bar looking grumpy.
There isn’t anything to get - the unstructured movement and getting into the music is part of the enjoyment. I’ve occasionally broken out into dance sequences in a club because I can (just recycling things from my dance class) and sure it’s great to be able to do, but you can’t do an entire evening of that because routines are only intended to last for about a minute unless you’ve been learning them for weeks.
I wish the grumpy drinkers hanging at the bar would keep out of clubs. They take up valuable space, and I don’t know why they don’t just go to, say, The Dew Drop Inn for dollar beers and watch the game or something. It’s quieter and they don’t have to feel intimidated.
Yes! He would get one zillion instant brownie points forever. I have a male friend who, like me, thinks it’s always an acceptable time to break out into song and dance. Of course, he’s gay. Waaah! Why don’t straight men like to dance?
Male, straight, white. I wonder if there’s additional correlation there, because there’s a perception (including my own perceptions) that blacks and Latinos tend towards dancing more than white folk.
Seriously, it’s better for me to be grumpy at the bar than uncomfortable on the dancefloor. Neither experience is fun.
I would happily do that, and I avoid clubs as much as feasible, but occasionally parties, going-away dos, company events, and so on end up with a club visit. Either I call it a night and go home, or go to the club and endure it before the party carries on elsewhere.
Straight male and I love to dance. I won a dance contest in the 5th grade and have loved dancing of all types ever since. My wife and I love being the first on the dance floor as it gives us a lot of room. We won several Disco contests in our younger years.
I love to dance. Haven’t really done it in a couple of years owing to small children. I like club dancing and I took about eight years of bellydance classes. I went to goth clubs, where the dancing tends to be much more, um, athletic and weird, but fun.
My husband, a straight white guy, is quite a good dancer and likes to do it.
Straight woman, LOVE to dance. I’m not a *good *dancer, but it’s not about that at a bar or club. It’s about having fun, enjoying the music, and the crowd, and just the pure physicality of dancing.
Guys, I really can’t emphasize enough that being willing to dance ups your shot at getting laid about 837%. We don’t need you to be Baryshnikov, we just want you to be game. Fortunately, most of the guys I know get this. At the very least, they get the fact that “Hey, that girl you’ve been watching dance all night? She’s busy dancing, so if you want to talk to her, you’re gonna have to get out there.”
Straight male. I like club dancing. I’m good enough that I’ve gotten compliments from various people. It’s also been said that I lack a gene that makes me self-conscious and embarrassed. I pretty much have no shame. That probably helps.
I usually just think of my body as a set of joints. Then I move those joints in sync with the music in either circles, lines, or arcs. I usually don’t think of it as, say, “my legs”. It’s more like “OK, knees in alternating circles…now reverse…here comes the big bass note, so slide left in 3, 2, 1…” How do you guys think of it?
It seems to me that people who grow up listening to dance music develop an ear that allows them to develop into good dancers. The best dancers, be they amateur or professional, feel the music. That can’t be taught. Show me a person who can dance well – let’s take Justin Timberlake, for instance, because he’s a white hetero dude – and I can guarantee you that he grew up listening to music.
Or, look at the pictures of little kids dancing on YouTube. Even toddlers can rock it out if they’ve been exposed to it early. They intuitively hear, and respond to, the beat and the nuances of the songs. Cultures with heavy musical infuences – Africans and Native Americans are two – all seem to produce more than their fair share of good dancers. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence.
Unfortunately for Americans, most of us descended from cultures that didn’t place an emphasis on music and dancing. No African drums or folk tales acted out to music for us. And, whoa boy, can you tell when you go to a dance club.
P.S. I love to dance. My dad loved listening to all kinds of music, and it wasn’t a stretch for me to translate my love of music into dancing. I’ll dance at home to music any chance I get. I find it to be joyful and relaxing. And it’s a cardio workout, which is a plus!
Word. For many, it seems dancing might be embarrassing if they’re not doing it right, so they abstain altogether, which is the same reason why these same folks become dancing fools after the fourth round.
White, male and straight - I love dancing, but don’t get to do nearly enough of it
I used to love big raves where you could get your hands in the air and totally lose it to the music, but now I’m over 30 those days are gone and I’m stuck throwing shapes with my two-year-old to Disney songs.
Straight male likes to dance but rarely does anymore now that I’m married and older.
There are a lot of dance clubs on Long Island in New York. As a teenager in the 80s, a group of us went clubbing every weekend. We would dance for hours. I could move fairly well but was not considered that exceptional. Around this time (the 80s), I went to Europe and went clubbing. I was surprised how few people could dance well there and was shocked at the reaction I got there. In clubs in Spain and Hungary, women literally flocked around me as soon as I got on the dancefloor. In New York, where there are a lot of great dancers, no one really paid attention to me.
Male, straight, white. Love dancing, hate clubbing. Partly it’s that I like the satisfaction of doing something right, i.e. nailing whatever dance you’re doing, and clubbing doesn’t do that. Mostly, though, it’s that I really hate crowds, and too-loud music. Gimme a swing/line/contra/ballroom/English/jazz/salsa/tango dance over a club any day. I also do the listening-to-music-dancing-around-the-house-thing.
Gay female (only one to vote so far!) and I love to dance. I’m not a great dancer, but I manage, and I’ve never been anywhere where people are actually judging you on your dancing.
Wiki says he’s of English ancestry with unconfirmed Native American possibly in there somewhere. Or am I being whooshed?
I think the :dubious: was at his heterosexuality, which I personally see no reason to question (just because he’s an entertainer doesn’t make him gay and he doesn’t ping my dar at all).
