Why Women Dance

“Do you wanna dance?” The use of this question presumes a man has overcome all of the anxieties associated with making a new social contact. No matter how cool he is trying to be, one can still detect the signs of nervous apprehension; darkened armpits, trembling lip, forced eye-contact, lack of eye-contact, non-sequitor conversational gushes. The well adjusted female, wily in her use of body language, ceases the chewing of her gum for a beat, tilts her head coyly, twirls her index finger up in her tresses, smiles and responds, “Sure!” Tempted to translate these gestures into signals of sexual interest, the wizened man recognizes the true meaning: “I’ll dance with anyone just to separate myself from the wallflowers so don’t get any ideas, bub.”

Let’s face it, women love to dance.  This being well established, the question is why?  I don’t know.  I don’t know anything about what goes on in a woman’s mind. If you are a regular reader of these missives, you (should) have by this time recognized that I have a pretty high opinion of my ability to assess human motivations.  This is not true for women.  They are a species unto themselves (be sure to see next week’s post) and defy rational understanding.

Lest you foster the opinion that I dislike women, let me assure you.  I love women.  They are infinitely more interesting than men.  They smell better (if you can get past, “Hey, don’t stand so close, bub!  There’s plenty of room in here for everybody.”) They are certainly more pleasing to look at. And perhaps most of all, they don’t drag you into foolish testosterone fueled agility competitions that result in emergency room visits that you now wish you had included in your health insurance coverage.

Women are the reason men exist, both biologically and aspirationally (I may have made this word up… it’s happened before… hey, Brenda, do you remember “morphodite”?).  If it weren’t for your mother your biological self would be, well let’s say non-conceived just to be delicate.  And if it weren’t for the aspirational (spell check didn’t like it in this form either), you would spend all of your time eating, jumping off of things and sitting in the waiting room at the ER. Women save us from a life of obesity and pain.

I recall from my youth the Sunday evening dances sponsored by the parish CYO (that’s Catholic Youth Organization for you heathens).  We sponsored a battle of the bands competition to identify who would be the regular performers at these soirees. They were all terrible. I can understand why Jim Morrison would have drunk himself to death if he knew how his songs were being butchered.

It takes some effort to engage in the pubescent ballet of sexual awakening in the same room that last school year was your lunch room. The scent of peanut butter and Fritos overwhelmed the English Leather cologne your godmother had bought you for Junior High graduation.

Just last year, these girls were all makeup free and wearing knee-length plaid skirts and white blouses.  Now they were making up for lost time. Maybelline was raking in record profits as these newly liberated fillies plastered on mascara with a brick-layer’s trowel. Sleeveless dresses exposed arms with countless freckles. High heel pumps (all two inches) replaced saddle oxfords.  And the “House of the Rising Sun” reverberated off of the concrete block walls with such volume that our retinas were surely displaced. At least these bands played a lot of slow songs (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

When the summer ended I began the next chapter of my education at the local public high school. The culture shock that I experienced still influences my perception of the world today. Students addressed the teachers while seated!  The cliques from the local feeder public junior high schools were transplanted intact.  You were an insider, or you were invisible. The school had a cafeteria (actually, food service windows providing victuals to students in an outdoor quad), but I still brown bagged.

But the most interesting phenomenon was the school dances.  As they were held in the basketball gym, attendees were required to remove their shoes before advancing to the dance floor. The lights were turned down low; hubba, hubba. The bands were marginally better if exponentially louder. And the girls! From a pool of twenty the year before, I could cast my net into a sea awash with hundreds of women (almost).  And how did the fair sex handle this freedom?  They all stood around the perimeter of the dance area in their respective cliques, gossiping; staring daggers at any boy who had the audacity to inquire as to their desire to cut a rug!  It’s not like these people could possibly know me by reputation.

And now, women have the audacity to ask, “Why don’t you want to dance?”  

A Bonus 

 

Dale Holbrook’s Survival Guide: Tip One

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Repeat as necessary.