Dancing with the ...

As a married man I don't get to enjoy the pursuits of courting much anymore. Not saying I ever did. It always felt as fake as an email from a Nigerian dictator just trying to make ends meet.

And for me the worst part was dancing. I'm unsure where we as a species decided that this was a good means for selecting mates, but I'm upset by the idea. Darwin would say that I shouldn't reproduce, and that I dance like a lemur being attacked by army ants.

I don't have rhythm. Any. I am incapable of understanding tempo, any piano piece I play follows a tantric motion akin to learning to parallel park with a standard transmission. I once shortened the choreographer's life by a few months by attempted to dance in a circle and clap on cue.

So in a mating way I proved tremendously ineffective. Thankfully in religious circles dancing isn't the main way to meet girls, it's Bible studies. And so my roving intellect and low light conditions helped me there.

My wife and I are happily enough and sufficiently married to do things like social dancing. We attempted this first while engaged. We took ballroom dancing, which I related more to steering with a flat. We both have strong tendencies to lead, she is limited by walking backwards, I have no other excuse than sheer incapability.

After that debacle we didn't try dancing lessons again. That leaves the two other times that we as a married couple will dance: Weddings and Christmas parties. Last week we were at a Christmas party and we actually danced. Together.

Slow dances don't count, and neither does the polka. They're too easy to fake. I love the polka because it involves cardio ability and I have the morbid game of "see how fast we can cross directly through the dance floor".

Then on request I had my moment. The DJ played "Gonna make you sweat" and I pulled out my repertoire of 90's moves. I danced like an unholy trinity of M.C. Hammer, Vanilla Ice and Chandler from Friends. And I had fun.

I did notice that scanning the crowd that was still sitting, most of them seemed to stare at me. And not in a "Hubba Hubba" way, more in a "Good lord does he know he looks like that?" way.

So when you try to woo the opposite sex with your grooving moves, or worse, try to impress your spouse, do remember: you look like a fool, so be a confident one. And have fun. She'll like that no matter how much she protests for you to get off the floor.

Oh, and never refer to your dance partner as a horse with a palsy.