If you're anything like me, you've spent the last two months going to a lot of weddings, either alone or with your significant other. And although we typically don't enjoy sitting in a church and staring at comb-overs, there are two things provided at weddings we can all agree on: food and alcohol. I can live like the lord of the event center, alternating between sips of coffee and bites of three or four varieties of cupcakes I have chosen. Things are as perfect as they can be for a greedy sinner like myself, until I am dethroned by one simple request: I'm asked to get up and dance.
There are a lot of people like me out there -- the joy-killers, the social alienators, the beings that will occupy chairs for eternity. We are those who do not dance. As a favor to all the nervous loners who sit at desolate tables in the corner, I'm going to tell you precisely why you won't find people like me tearing up the dance floor with the "Electric Slide."
6. I Don't Know Anyone Here
Dancing, I look like a dumpy undercover cop or perhaps a young Wilford Brimley. When I take the dance floor, no one here knows that I was in an independent film that won a festival in Germany or that I regularly shop at a co-op. My life's work of creating a mask of semi-respectable accomplishments is of no use here. All these people know is that I have many large veins in my head and I am sweating cheap tequila. A lot of it.
5. No One Here Wants To Have Sex With Me
The only time I have ever willfully danced is when I've been outrageously drunk at a party, trying to impress someone because I saw it work in a John Hughes movie. For my kind, dancing is the boldest move ever -- a secret deceptive weapon in the arsenal of the uncomfortable. It fools people into believing that you are a brave and fun-loving person, always up for some spontaneity.
However, this isn't some dimly lit, meat-hall dance club in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where you can blow nerd-minds by wearing a bolo tie -- this is a wedding. There are children and grandparents here.
Besides, guys like me already know how we're leaving before we even get there: quickly and alone, or with the person who dragged us there. Why even risk embarrassing myself by dancing?
