Can’t dance? Don’t.
Dance clubs do not catch me at my best.
My body was not exactly designed to replicate Michael Flatley. Far from it. While I do not mind shaking the occasional leg, I like to do it one at a time, preferably in private. Unfortunately, when you live in a country where there is nothing else to do to while away the long, weary weekends, you find yourself being drawn to one night club or the other. It’s inevitable.
Friends do not help, either. I usually hang out with a bunch of guys who all have managed to secure the immediate presence of girlfriends in Singapore. So it follows that I, one of the few singles in this place, often am forced to accompany these pairs to their favorite watering and dancing holes as a sort of sympathetic appendage.
It’s not all bad throughout the night. The festivities start out with the entire bunch dancing as a group. In a mob, I can camouflage my twin deficiencies (no groove, no girl) pretty easily. All it takes is to focus really hard on which leg is currently being shaken by the group, follow suit, and try not to kick anyone in the gonads.
But once the DJ starts playing romantic ballads, the lovebirds usually pair up and move to far corners of the floor. Leaving yours truly stranded in the middle of the dance floor, much like the surprised Mark Antony who realized that his friends and generals had peeled off one by one from his group, until at last in Egypt he was suddenly left alone, with the spotlight shining on him.
Years of experience in battle has hardened me somewhat and taught me what to do. The modus operandi in such situations, without fail, is to slowly start shaking one’s hands to the tune. (Not the legs. Unfortunately, in these situations, there is often a breakdown of communications between the torso and the legs. It’s usually best to restrict the strain to one set of limbs at a time.) Once you have got the hands swaying gently, you should slowly execute a tactical retreat to the bar. You can always find solace there in the company of fellow guys who are as rhythmically challenged as you are.
But the retreat does not end there. There is only so much time you can spend at the counter, locking eyes with the barman. Eventually they ask you to stop begging for vodka. That’s your cue to then start circling the dance floor, slowly twisting and turning to avoid the smooching couples, ducking to avoid the wannabe ballerinas and stopping altogether to prevent the spotlights singling you out. It’s an art.
There’s only one silver lining to the whole cloud. I am usually the only one in the group who isn’t expected to hold back his girl’s hair while she pukes her gut out in the street outside. It’s not always the wisest thing to dance with girls. Ask Antony.
