The Phil Collins song “I can’t dance” goes:
“I can’t dance, I can’t talk
Only thing about me is the way I walk
I can’t dance, I can’t sing
I’m just standing here selling everything”
Funny thing about this song is that Phil Collins is white, but Phil can dance, walk, sing, and talk better than probably 90% of white people. I write this because I think that this song can describe the vast majority of whities, especially me. When I’m completely sober and head to the bar and there’s a band or some dj playing, I have no rhythm whatsoever. I don’t like utilizing the standing still snap. Anytime moving my feet is involved, I just feel awkward. I think I can pull off the head nod from time to time but you can only do that for so long before you start to feel like a rock em sock em robot. I dread entering any wedding with a move because I feel like such a goober pulling off a lame attempt at being funny. I’ve got in situations where one of my friends thinks it’s hilarious to tell a girl that his friend is a good dancer and than obviously all eyes go to me and I feel like a square if I deny the request but aside from the Manute (or Rodman), I got nothing. I remember some girl grabbed my hand when I was too sober and wanted to dance and I stood there like a statue like, what now? I feel like I’m supposed to lead a tango around the room or bust out twirl after twirl. These encounters are difficult to deal with sober.
Drunk dancing is a bit easier than sober dancing because you don’t care what you look like or who’s looking at you. You may be looking like a fool (with your pants on the ground) but the effort is all that really counts. I also think grinding up on girls is a lot easier and accepting rejection is no biggie either. The guy going behind a girl and grinding their crotch into her ass is obviously the easiest move to pull off. There’s no skill behind it except swaying and sometimes you can get wandering hands which makes things interesting. I actually like the fist pump due to it’s simplicity. I think it would be interesting to take a dance class an actually improve and learn some moves to make these situation bearable, even sober. However, I’m not sure how many classes are out there that specialize in “solo, white people dancing at a bar trying to impress the ladies so they can get in their pants”. Maybe there’s a market for that…
My brother is apparently writing for the school newspaper which I find hilarious but I was going to suggest this topic to write about. You can also incorporate Karaoke which I find just as annoying as dancing even though I could probably make my way through it because I know a fair amount of songs. The problem is that I’m just white. We are good with a lot of things but dancing and rhythm are not one of them. To move backwards to the lyrics of Phil’s song, “I’m just standing here selling everything,” this is what white people are good at.
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