Well, do you? Huh? What are we talking about here -- disco or fox-trotting or what?

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

Answers

Sometimes I like to dance at clubs. I have to be in the right mood. Or really bored. I always want to take a country-western dance class -- not because I like country music, but because they play it at so many functions here, and it would be fun if Paul and I knew how to do it.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

Yes! Dancing is great. I will dance to anything. I was waltzing with my little sister in the London Aquarium at the weekend. This Sat I will be getting funky at a club in Soho, and soon, very soon, I will manage to drag someone along to a drum'n'bass night so I can get frenetic.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

I go for more of the ballroom variety, aka "foxtrot". :-) My wife and I learned how to dance on a cruise ship about five years ago and it was a blast. I just think it's damn sexy. I feel sorry for guys who don't dance (or who won't let themselves dance).

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

I did take a Country Western dance class. For those of you not in TX, it *wasn't* Line Dancing (though I learned some of that back in AR). It was more waltzing, Texas-Tommy, two-stepping (yes, I knowit's only two steps, but, oh, nevermind). I took it b/c, as Gwen said, they play it at so many functions here. I have to say, it's a lot of fun to be able to dance to it. I'm not very good, but most people don't care.

For my b-day one year I made everyone go take Salsa dance lessons which they do for free on certain nights at some of the local bars. That's a blast too. What always happens with my friends though is we drink too many margaritas, learn the dance, forget it the next day as soon as the hangover hits. I think I've taken at least 5 or 6 salsa lessons and can't dance a step of it..

I've taken swing as well, but those stories are embarrassing and I'll leave them out.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

God I love to dance. I used to go on TV and dance a long time ago. 9th Street West, Hullabaloo, Lloyd Thaxton's Hop. Not Bandstand though. A few years ago I went with my at the time new wife to her 20th and she danced 3 or 4 dances with me then wanted to talk to all her old friends. Geesh what a gossipy group. Disgusting who they sliced up after all those years. No pity whatsoever. Anyway, with her not around, I was fair game. I danced all night long. I loved it. I danced every dance with all these goodlooking young women. All of a sudden my bubble was burst! Let's go home now honey. But it ended up being a very nice evening afterwards if you catch my drift. But yeah I love to dance. Nothin fancy. Just wiggle and squirm. Dancin' fool.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

I like the night life. I even like to boogie on occaison.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

fuck yeah, I like to dance!

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2000

I like to do silly dances around the house and am a pretty avid chair dancer but don't ever go out dancing. I'm just too self-conscious, and I guess clubs aren't really my scene anyway.

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2000

The clubs where I live are really lame and play terrible 10-year-old dance music (Baby Got Back, anyone?) but I go anyway. There's one downtown where girls are encouraged to dance on speakers. I partook one drunken evening. It was a little scary--I was like 8 feet off the dance floor and sliping on beer. My friends and I try to insulate ourselves from the yucky club guys. No, I DO NOT want to dry hump you on the dance floor, but thanks for the offer.

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2000

My kid is downstairs dancing his heart out to "Safety Dance". He has it on repeat and it's been playing for about an hour.

There's more jumping than I remember.

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2000

I LOVE dancing! Take me to a concert, club, etc, I can't stop moving. I dance when I'm getting dressed, I dance when I'm walking the dog. I'm dancing in my chair right now, to my kick ass Pink CD :)

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2000

I like the idea of dancing, but I'm so damn bad at it. I never learned "real" dancing; you know, the kind where you actually have to know the steps, and the man leads, and all that. But I grew up in the 60s and 70s, when the closest thing we had to real dancing was the (**shudder**) hustle (speak to me not of disco!). The Chicken Dance and the Electric Slide don't count as dancing, either.

I *do* know how to do the Cotton-Eyed Joe, but I don't admit it often. Also, I won a contest for doing the Twist when I was about 5 years old.

-- Anonymous, September 07, 2000

Only if no one is watching. Then I'm actually pretty good. If I'm in public, I develop an invisible third foot and lose all coordination. I don't like being the vcenter of attention, and bad dancing gets just as much attention as really GOOD dancing. Or so I've noted.

I took ballroom dane classes. It was one of the more miserable experiences in my life and I don't remember a single thing except the humiliation and discomfort. Not one step. And, oh, my mother and I had a battle of will sover appropriate dance attire. I have always had very simple style and would have loved to have had a simple black or navy A-line dress, with or without sleeves. My mother felt that this was inappropirate for a 11-year-old. Maybe she had a point, too, back then. So we couldn't find anything that didn't make me want to cry or throw up or hide behind things--everything in my size (small) was covered with lace or had a Peter Pan collar or a ditsy print or a huge buttbow or it was pink. Then, when we did narrow it down to the finest that fashion had to offer in 1977, we went through the excruciating hell of trying them on. I was horribly modest and easily embarrssed so it was a constant battle to keep my mother from barging in and poking at exposed flesh while trying to "help" me. I ended up bursting into tears with frustration and unhappiness several times. It sucked.

Finally, after trying on four dozen dresses, most of which were my mother's idea of cute and which made me look like a Cabbage Patch Kid or Holly Hobbie--neither of which is anything remotely close to my style--we had two identical dresses picked out.

They were identical in all respects except for color. One was a blueish lavender and one was a peachy-orangy color. I hated the style, but was less appalled by the purple one, and gravitated to it after twenty minutes of misery. See, I felt that I looked shitty in the peach, and I hated orange to boot, but my mother was pissed off that what she'd built up in her mind as a 'fun' outing had been such a disaster and she needled and nagged and worked on me and inserted all kinds of doubt in my mind until I was convinced that the purple dress made me look "sallow". We got as far as the check-out counter with the purple one and my mother wouldn't stop complaining and promising I'd regret my choice and telling me I looked awful, etc. So I gave up and she bought the peach one and she was pissed that I showed no interest or delight. At that point, though, I'd have agreed to a burlap bag to just escape the store.

Every week I had a dancing lesson and every week I had to wear that hideous orange dress. After ten lessons, the other kids all noticed the orange dress was back again and again and they mocked me, implying that it was unclean in some way.

After dance lessons, I outgrew the peachy thing as fast as I could. By force of will, really. In truth, I'd contort my body and jam my arms and legs out of it awkwardly and pick and pull at it and complain that it chafed me whenever I was told to wear it again. It actually DID chafe, but that hadn't been enough of a deterrent to keep me out of it before, but when my arms and legs were hanging all out of it, it looked cheap as all get out, and that was the deciding factor. My mom is big on appearances. Soon it was a moot point as I really WAS too big. I have never been so glad to get rid of a piece of clothing. I'm not an ungrateful person, but the power of wills over stupid stuff over and over again wore me down on a regular basis.

When I had my colors done officially--at my mother's insistence, of course--guess what colors are "mine"? Black. Navy. I'm also supposed to be able to wear icy pastels. There was a swatch that was--you guessed it--blueish lavender. The exact shade I was told I looked "sallow" in. Go figure.

At age 11, learning the foxtrot and the cha cha and the rhumba and waltzes--you don't see the point. I never picked up on the steps because I'm not naturally physically gifted. Luckily, I've never had an occasion where I HAD to dance, though I suppose I could have. It doesn't help that I'm taller than most people, with blonde hair, so I feel like a May Pole with a spotlight on top bumbling about on a dance floor.

PEople who can dance well, though, I'm in awe of.

-- Anonymous, September 07, 2000

Only if I get to lead.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2000