Dance like nobody's watching

I had a lady friend who used the following quote as her "sig", appended indiscriminately to all of her emails:

"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire."

If this is true, and I think it has merit, then it is curious that the population of the world continues to increase at such a dangerous clip. Assuming we are attracted to those who move well, with rhythm, grace and natural ease, and supposing further that those same vertical skills predict the quality of horizontal ones, it is a blessing for a great majority of us that alcohol temporarily disables judgment. I know I would be childless had dancing played a part in the follow-up equation that ushered me into fatherhood.

It is generally accepted, I think, that women like to dance more than men. A cursory glance at online singles ads bears this out. Women invariably list dancing as an interest, whereas only men embracing an alternative lifestyle venture to include it. This is because dancing is an alternative lifestyle for the average guy. Only under the influence of excessive amounts of alcohol have I allowed myself to loosen up enough to think I was cutting a fancy figure on the floor. Being suitably trashed enables the dim light of reason to cast a favourable light on my otherwise grotesque gyrations. Think of Elaine on Seinfeld. It is frighteningly easy to convince ourselves that everyone watching is as amazed as we are at our sudden ability to feel the beat, and move to the groove.

And so it was last night, as I waited for a fare outside the local Army-Navy club. A Stag and Doe party was in full swing, and I watched, from the relative anonymity of my cab, the incomprehensibly silly movements of inebriated twentysomethings, fully engaged in what they no doubt considered alluring behaviour. Adding to the absurdity of the spectacle was my inability to hear the music to which they ground out their mating-ritual moves. Foreplay has never struck me as less appealing. Otherwise attractive women were rendered foolish and desultory by their obvious love of an activity they do very badly. But they looked positively brilliant compared to the men, who fell into two categories: those that knew they were bad, and danced either because they were being forced to, or as a stratagem to improve their odds in the genetic lottery; and those that moved more energetically and, as a result, more spasmodically, because they had convinced themselves that they were looking pretty darned good. And damned sexy. All of which leads me to confirm, once again, something I have secretly promised since the last time I took to the floor.

I will never dance again.