I’m also not doing any of those line dances like the macarena or the electric slide. Most offer no creativity whatsoever – they are designed for people who do not know how to dance. Learn the steps and hand motions (if there are any) and presto! You, too, can look smooth and slick out there on the dance floor. I am a good dancer and get bored out of my skull midway through the first repetition. I tend to split off (if dragged out there by my friends) and just do my own thing. Why do the electric slide when I actually possess rhythm and can actually move my ass to the beat?
Oh shut up and have a proper drink 
I like to dance but I’m probably considered quite rude in refusing offers from time to time yet it’s the offeree who’s being beligerant and therefore ruder. So I’m with the OP - nothing wrong with a gentle enticement or two to be politely declined, after that it’s gloves off.
It’s so stupid.
[quote=“Dogzilla, post:81, topic:667546”]
I’m also not doing any of those line dances like the macarena or the electric slide. QUOTE]
Ha ha - that stuff has me off the dancefloor in seconds. I’m a bit of a freestyler and there’s no way I’m jumping around in circles tapping my shoulders. It looks cute when everyone else does it - let’s keep it that way!
He didn’t compare it to rape, he compared it to AGREEING to have sex with someone because “it won’t kill you” and it would make them happy. Something that moronic does require an anology like that to make the point.
This is quite possibly the most passive aggressive behavior I’ve ever seen anyone admit to and recruiting your girlfriend to assist you with making every social gathering awkward and painful is just awful. Just stay home rather than work so hard to draw negative attention to yourself.
Yes. The whole notion that the person who doesn’t want to do something has to prove to the requester’s satisfaction that it would cause some kind of harm before being allowed to refuse is reprehensible.
Well clearly you don’t mind dancing as much as some of the rest of us. There are tons of things I could be persuaded to do to be fun and get along. I’ll also drive 50 miles out of my way if you need a ride. I’ll loan you $1000 and not expect to see it returned. I’ll take a long walk on the beach when I’d rather be napping. I’ll bring something to your pot luck (and I hate pot lucks). I will not, however, dance. Just because you’re willing to do it, doesn’t change the the point of the OP. If someone doesn’t want to dance, they should be left alone. It really, really, doesn’t ruin the party, wedding, or bar scene to have a few people sitting around having a drink while you dance.
I’ve had it said to me in an attempt to get me to dance when I didn’t feel like it. It’s pretty much the opposite of feminist.
This is the way the nazis thought too. “Come on. Go in the gas chamber. It will make my evening a lot better if you just go in the gas chamber. Why don’t you want to go in the gas chamber? You’re really being a bad person here by not going into the gas chamber and making my evening more enjoyable.”
:rolleyes: Y’all are never letting go that a disproportionate analogy was used, are you…
My take on it is this: by accepting the invitation to attend and participate in a gathering, you’ve agreed to attend and participate. The time to decline the activity is not after you’ve arrived - it’s before. And if you don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to decline the invitation outright, then don’t half-ass it and show up only to grumble and whine about people expecting you to engage in the activity you’ve agreed to engage in. Suck it up. Don’t get mad at the people asking you to dance, get upset with the person that put you in that situation - oh, wait.
Now, as I’ve said, I don’t like dancing. However sometimes my relationship with the person inviting me is such that I feel I can’t reasonably decline attending a gathering that will include dancing to help them celebrate some milestone. To my mind, if the relationship is important enough to me to attend even though I don’t like dancing, it’s also important enough to hide my distaste and participate. And as an adult, this means no whining, complaining, grousing, grumbling, pouting, acting put-upon or like I’m doing a big favor. I accepted the invitation, it’s time to behave gracefully.
If you can’t accept the entire package gracefully, don’t accept. You won’t have to spend an unpleasant evening saying no all night if you had the conviction to say no in the first place. And if you’re in a situation where you can’t so no, acknowledge and accept that and proceed like a grown-up rather than a recalcitrant two-year old.
I’d say it’s more that I don’t like whining as much.
OP here.
I feel the need to clarify something.
In my scenario I was speaking not so much of one person asking me to dance and being personally offended at my resistance.
I was instead trying to portray a situation where someone is already dancing - typically within a small group - and feels that I absolutely must be up there with them. I’ve seen it happen time and again. One of the offenders, after seeing my repeated begging-off motions, dances her way over to my table and attempts to physically haul me onto the dance floor with the others.
Because then I would be, you know, having fun.
This is a bit different scene than some poor lass getting her feelings crushed because I turned her down specifically.
mmm
I didn’t recruit anyone, it was more of a joke on the way there than anything else. It was a 20 second conversation. Every social gathering? I mentioned one pool party where I asked a question. I didn’t work hard at all to draw any attention to myself whatsoever. If you knew the person throwing the pool party (a best friend of mine), you would know the best way to draw negative attention to myself would be to not show up.
Sometimes it goes beyond just the evening. After countless wedding receptions where I was physically coerced into dancing (talk about causing a scene if I had actually resisted…), I decided once to quietly disappear and go for a stroll outside for the dancing portion. Well, I managed to avoid awkward questions *during *the dance, but I managed to anger the bride for some time afterward.
Apparently, the only solution that dancepushers approve of is for non-dancers to withdraw from all social interaction altogether.
:dubious: Please forgive me for not joining you in the Superior Dance.
In the interest of full disclosure it has been like forever since I was in the uncomfortable OP situation. Somehow for over a quarter century I have managed to not really have had to deal myself with the won’t-take-no-for-an-answer-when -I-really-mean-NO-or-else-get-mad-make-a-scene sort of scenario at any number of parties/weddings/clubcrawls.
So it does bother me that a person’s choice to dance or not if and when they feel like it, which has been the accepted norm for me essentially for all my adult life, would be viewed as somehow an impeachment of their character. Your post leads to reactions like the last line in Dr. Strangelove’s post immediately preceding this one. (Though still, Doc, disappearing is not an elegant strategy either, as you learned.)
Bringing it to the personal realm, people who’d specifically and personally invite me, because of there being a relationship, to a celebration, will know that I can share happily in their merriment over food, drink, conversation, games, will help with managing the crowd or moving supplies, will dress up, pose for pictures, etc. and *depending on circumstance *dance or not dance, and we are both glad I’m there sharing their company.
OTOH when simply at a general type event where the invitation/participation is open/impersonal, well, then others at the event would not have any higher moral claim over my way of enjoying the evening. I may dance, I may not dance, I may dance part of the time and not the rest of the time.
Right, so, if I host a party where alcohol will be served, non-drinkers should just suck it up and get sozzled or decline the invitation outright?
If you NEED everyone around you to be drinking for you to have a good time, you’ve got a drinking problem.
If you NEED everyone around you to be dancing for you to have a good time, you’ve got… some kind of problem.
Should contact Dancerpushers Anonymous, perhaps?
I guess I was getting at the idea that well, if dancing is part of a social event then everyone must participate. That seems odd to me - most events I go to, dancing, drinking, eating and conversation are equal parts of the deal.
But then I will be firm in my refusal to dance, and anyone who complains will be gently reminded about who made a scene in the first place.
So no one who doesn’t like to dance is allowed to attend weddings? No one who doesn’t like to dance can go hear a local band or hang out with friends? Ridiculous. The people who need to learn to behave gracefully are the ones who can’t take no for an answer.