# The "I have never wanted to dance, not even a little bit" thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 6, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527 "2010-05-06T17:16:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/61 "2010-05-13T03:08:49Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > [Look of incomprehension] > > I’m getting old and crotchety, and don’t go to dance clubs anymore, but sometimes I’m somewhere else, hear the sound, and the music just moves me, so I dance. Do you dance-haters never play your favorite song at home, and dance around to it? Why would we want to ruin a perfectly good song with dancing? I love music, there isn’t a single second that i’m sitting at the computer, in the car or hell even the toilet that i am not listening to a good song. The urge to move along with it is completely foreign to me. As for not being able to get laid without dancing, that’s utter rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/62 "2010-05-13T03:16:32Z")
It doesn’t ruin it. I don’t see how moving to the rhythm of the music would “ruin” the song. A lot of songs are meant for you to dance to. It enhances it. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/63 "2010-05-13T03:30:30Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I like dancing, once in a great while. How else can you become one with the Great Macrocosmic All? Pie. Next question. (I also like dancing once in a blue moon.) ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/64 "2010-05-13T03:33:29Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > It doesn’t ruin it. I don’t see how moving to the rhythm of the music would “ruin” the song. A lot of songs are meant for you to dance to. It enhances it. It would ruin it in the same way that doing any other thing i don’t enjoy doing would ruin it. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/65 "2010-05-13T06:20:55Z")
Hate it. Would follow friends to the club and just drink. And was just happy to do it. FINALLY…2 years ago two friends got me to dance. I was quite lit and she dragged me, LITERALLY, onto the dance floor. I warned her I didn’t know how to dance, she said that was OK. I told her I was going to make a fool of myself, she promised me I couldn’t be that bad. Yes. It was EVERY BIT as humiliating as I had pictured it would have been. Every bit. Two years later I STILL cringe at how much of an idiot I looked like. They haven’t asked me since. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Spectralist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Spectralist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectralist)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/66 "2010-05-13T08:16:14Z")
I also have never enjoyed dancing. > [@spark240](#): > > Do you exhilarate in your body at all? … Or is this notion as incomprehensible as wanting to dance? Not really. I don’t find it incomprehensible though. I don’t see how the flailing about chaotically/standing and swaying back and forth that makes up most dancing I’ve seen can be fun. But more complex forms of dance look like they could be fun. Not enough so that I would actually want to do them though. > [@spark240](#): > > Also, what kind of music do you enjoy most? I don’t have any particular type of music I like most. As far as I can tell very nearly all music is crap and I’ve never felt like trying to find the few gems buried in there. So I’ve never really intentionally listened to music. What few gems I have come across have varied quite widely between genres with no particular tends that I’ve noticed. I’ve certainly never felt compelled to move from music. To sing, perhaps, but not to move. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/67 "2010-05-13T18:44:21Z")
I _hate_ dancing. I love music, both playing it myself and listening to it, but feel no need to attempt to ‘adorn’ it by flinging my body around stupidly to contemporary music, nor to follow some retarded routine of stepping around in a circle to less-contemporary music. I’ve had a thousand and ten opportunities to get into it, because ballroom dancing is huge there (no, really). And it’s not an institution that caters to the geriatric set, just a bunch of freaks (fully including myself in the freakishness, but in a different way). Multiple nights every week, friends and classmates would be unavailable to study or otherwise hang out, because they’re busy waltzing or lindy dancing or whatever (it all looks the same to me). My conclusion was, actually, you look completely retarded dancing, and you can’t really enjoy the music if you’re too busy spinning around in a circle, so…yeah, I’ll pass, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/68 "2010-05-13T20:33:19Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > [Look of incomprehension] > > I’m getting old and crotchety, and don’t go to dance clubs anymore, but sometimes I’m somewhere else, hear the sound, and the music just moves me, so I dance. Do you dance-haters never play your favorite song at home, and dance around to it? I do and I’m as old as dirt Too! You know I will always have a thing for 90’s dance music and remembering the fun clubbing. I can still dance around my computer room and it brings me back. I just start moving to the rhythm. I even go out once in a while and wait for the right song and get up and dance because I still CAN. Utube is great and I can find almost everything except Prince on there. There is a letting go of oneself with dancing that is very cool. You have to try and then you have to find music that hits you in the heart. You don’t have to leave your house to dance. You can just dance for the fun of it. There are no rules, I like freestyle. I think it is (fear) of being laughed at that keeps people from dancing. My dog barks at me when I dance but after a while he is wiggling around on his back doing the dying cockroach to the music! ---
**Author:** ![may\_be\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@may\_be\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/may_be_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/69 "2010-05-13T21:06:40Z")
Yeah, not a fan here either. I grind, but I don’t think thats what you mean. It takes less skill, and the urge is probably different than that of the one to dance. Prom was mostly grinding, so I could do that. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/70 "2010-05-13T21:34:44Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > I think it is (fear) of being laughed at that keeps people from dancing. This would be like me saying it’s some perverse kind of exhibitionism that makes dancers dance. No, **Perciful** , you have to understand–there really are some people (a lot of people, perhaps!) who just have no urge to dance. It’s not that I’m afraid people will laugh at me. It’s that I don’t even feel the desire to do it at all. (It just so happens that when I have tried, people _did_ laugh at me. But that’s not the reason I don’t want to do it. I simply have never wanted to. I don’t see what would be enjoyable about it. I feel no urge to do it when I’m alone. Nothing like that at all.) ---
**Author:** ![lshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lshaw)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/71 "2010-05-13T23:55:58Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I have great difficulty remaining still in the presence of music, even just if it’s playing in my head, which is most of the time. It is as instantaneous and natural as breathing heavier when mocing upa staircase. > > My first career path was ballet, and for many years I was only happy when I was dancing. This is me. Every time I hear music, I feel an urge to move to it. Sometimes the “music” is just the symphony of emotions or feelings I experience from seeing something or being somewhere. Doesn’t matter where I am- when I’m listening to my ipod on the subway, when I’m walking through a bustling crowd and feeling the pulse of the city, when I’m at the symphony, when I’m home. With my ballet background, I really feel the more lyrical pieces, and I want my own studio in my apt where I can leap, spin, and move across the room to my heart’s content. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/72 "2010-05-14T01:32:03Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it is (fear) of being laughed at that keeps people from dancing. And there you go not getting it again. In my own room, alone, at midnight, with the door closed, the shades drawn and the lights off, listening to the greatest song ever written and feeling alive, happy and in the moment, I still feel no desire to dance, shake, groove or move. It’s not fear of being laughed at. I enjoy music most when I can sit and close my eyes and let it fill me without any distraction. Moving is a distraction. I don’t know how I or the others can spell it out any clearer. Your opinion of my dance skills is a matter of supreme indifference to me. I don’t care if you’re present or not. I feel no urge to move to the rhythm, no repressed desire to get up and dance if -sigh- only all these people weren’t watching. When I said “I don’t even dance when I’m alone, I don’t want to dance when I’m alone. There’s nothing in the beauty and pleasure I get from music that makes me want to mess it up by moving about”, what did you think I was trying to say? Did you think I’m a liar? Did you arrogantly assume you know my own mind better than I do? Or did you miss the post altogether because you came in with your mind made up and didn’t bother reading any of the responses? How can you have the audacity to state “I think it is (fear) of being laughed at that keeps people from dancing” in the face of so many responses that indicate that this isn’t the reason? ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/73 "2010-05-14T12:57:41Z")
> [@lshaw](#): > > This is me. Every time I hear music, I feel an urge to move to it. Sometimes the “music” is just the symphony of emotions or feelings I experience from seeing something or being somewhere. Doesn’t matter where I am- when I’m listening to my ipod on the subway, when I’m walking through a bustling crowd and feeling the pulse of the city, when I’m at the symphony, when I’m home. With my ballet background, I really feel the more lyrical pieces, and I want my own studio in my apt where I can leap, spin, and move across the room to my heart’s content. Beautifully said. I guess some people can’t dance? I thought we were all born with the ability? I also took ballet and although never was limber enough at Ballet still love to move to music and to enjoy music in many ways. It is one of the arts to see and feel the beauty, as you sound like you do. I see art in the ordinary and in many forms including music. I dance alone too. It feels like love to me. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/74 "2010-05-14T14:09:04Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > Beautifully said. I guess some people can’t dance? Did you read **Cazzle** ’s post right above yours? Or **Frylock** ’s, two above that? It has nothing to do with ability. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/75 "2010-05-14T14:21:16Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Did you read **Cazzle** ’s post right above yours? Or **Frylock** ’s, two above that? It has nothing to do with ability. Well to be fair, in that post I as much as stated I personally can’t dance. (Or at least, when I try, people laugh.) But as I said, that’s not the reason why I don’t want to dance. Rather, it’s the other way around–I don’t want to dance, therefore I have almost never done so, so I have almost no practice at it, therefore, I can’t do it skillfully. Meanwhile, many others in this thread haven’t specified they don’t know how to–and indeed, one or two have even said they can do it well enough when they have to. They just don’t like to do it. This isn’t a question, then, of what people _can_ do. It’s a question of what they _want_ to do. There are a bunch of us, it turns out, who simply don’t have a dancing urge. If **Perciful** is genuinely surprised that there people who don’t react to music the way s/he does, then I hope s/he’s coming away from this thread with some ignorance fought. For those of us who don’t want to dance, it is one of the most aggravating things in the world for our peers (and sometimes even strangers!) to insist that we “should” be dancing. We’re having a fine time. Dancing would _ruin_ it for us. You need to go have your fun, and let us have ours. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/76 "2010-05-14T14:37:15Z")
Back in caveman disco days, my friends and I would go to a club, buy a wine cooler, and if we didn’t score a table, would cluster around the dance floor, signalling yes, we would dance if asked. A guy would come up, tap my shoulder, and we would squeeze onto the dance floor. (Yes, I was an awful dancer, but a few wine coolers loosened me up some. So? I was there to have fun, not be judged on my do-the-hustle mad skillz.) Then, it was either thanks-for-the-dance and we would go our separate ways, or we would use this as an opportunity to converse in a quieter corner for a bit, maybe dance some more, and maybe exchange phone numbers. … There would always be a big cluster of single guys, swilling down drinks, who did NOT dance, would NOT dance, and seemed sullen and resentful of guys who asked girls to dance. And of course resentful of girls who did dance, and even more resentful of girls who danced with (gasp!) black guys. Why the drink-swillers were even in a dance club instead of at the corner dive on $1 beer night was a mystery. …Haven’t danced since, except occasionally at weddings, and around the house when alone. That’s all I got about dancing. If one flees in horror at the very thought of dancing, one should go out birdwatching or hiking or $1 beer night and avoid clubs, weddings, and proms. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/77 "2010-05-14T15:01:45Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > avoid clubs, weddings, and proms. Well yeah. I’m not sure why the guys you describe were there at all if they weren’t into dancing–it was a dance club, right? I’ve never been to a dance club or a school dance of any kind. I’ve been to weddings, since those are pretty much impossible to avoid. But the dance part is, of course, awkward. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/78 "2010-05-14T15:06:45Z")
None of you guys are invited to my party. I don’t want to have a room full of people just standing there. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/79 "2010-05-14T17:13:44Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > None of you guys are invited to my party. I don’t want to have a room full of people just standing there. Why would I want to go to one of your parties? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527/80 "2010-05-14T17:15:18Z")
I find it hard to believe that there is anyone who won’t at least tap their feet to “You Make me Wanna Shout!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-have-never-wanted-to-dance-not-even-a-little-bit-thread/538527.md?page=5)