How To Dance
Misanthropy, even at this juncture of history, is not recommended. The world needs love, earnestness, acceptance, and truth now more than ever. “Joy as an act of resistance” comes off a bit overwrought and cliched depending on the source, primarily because we’re in dire need of actual, tangible acts of resistance and far too many people are comfortable performing rather than doing, but there is a kernel of truth to it. But it’s AN act of resistance, not THE act. However, there is one particular activity in which adopting a nihilistic, misanthropic point of view actually works to one’s benefit: dancing.
Like most cis white men who grew up in suburban 1990s and 2000s America, dancing was shunned, verboten, the wheelhouse of girls and drama kids. The only instance in which a boy should be moving their feet and swiveling their hips was sports-related or when evading capture from the cops. The halls, classrooms, and cafeterias were rampant with internalized and externalized homophobia. There was nothing worse than being called gay or a worse slur by someone more popular. It’s funny to think about now, but the effect this environment had on young men at their most impressionable yielded internalized ripple effects that a lot of us carried into adulthood without realizing it, long after most of us woke up and realized that homophobia is stupid and that anyone who hates gay people is a fucking degenerate moron. Taking the long view, this tolerance and acceptance is still relatively new, as this country has a long, sordid history of violence against minorities, LGBTQIA+ people included. Rewatching the Bee Gees documentary recently the segment around the anti-disco backlash that coalesced in the late 1970s and literally exploded with Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in July 1979, is a stark portrayal of what people actually hated about disco: that it was primarily made by, and for, gay people of color.
‘For a directorial flourish, Marshall intercuts a euphoric July 1979 Bee Gees concert in Oakland with an event that happened two days later: “Disco Demolition Night,” promoted by Steve Dahl, a rock disc jockey who had popularized the obnoxious slogan “Disco Sucks.” Between games of a Chicago White Sox doubleheader at Comiskey Park, Dahl exploded a pile of disco records, which set off a hugely destructive crowd rampage. In the documentary, Vince Lawrence, who worked as an usher at Comiskey Park that night and later became a house-music producer, describes the event in hindsight as “a racist, homophobic book-burning.”’
This sort of vitriol, this unfounded hatred, was imbued into us by our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and classmates, intentionally or not. Sadly, not everyone has done the necessary work to unlearn all of this vile shit. Today’s political climate is proof of that. It was gay people then, and still is now to a degree, but now it’s trans people in the crosshairs. America’s culture is isolationist, toxically individualized, and despite our demographic diversity, rooted in hatred of anyone we perceive as different than us. We want big truck to drive to big store in suburb and buy big egg curbside so we don’t have to talk to anyone to take home to big house with big yard. Community, neighborliness, and solidarity barely register as a blip. But one way to ingratiate oneself into a community and meet new and different people, while growing and becoming a more well-rounded person yourself, is to do things outside of your comfort zone. Like dancing.
So now, I, a 40-year old man who does not know how to dance, will teach you how to dance. And this is where the misanthropy and nihilism come in.
If you’re deathly afraid of looking stupid, or projecting any level of vulnerability in a room full of strangers, you simply must trick your brain into believing that nothing matters. It’s akin to joining a gym. While the actual time and effort that goes into keeping an exercise routine seems to be too daunting for many people, I do believe for some, the primary reason they don’t go to the gym is fear of looking stupid, of using the equipment incorrectly, of being sweaty in front of others. If you work out at Planet Fitness, these stereotypes do not apply, however.
I did bodyweight workouts at home for years before I joined a gym. First, it was for financial reasons, but also, in my head I think I believed I too would be outed as a buffoon the second I walked through the door and said “one gym membership, please.” But my home workouts were plateauing and I needed to take the next step. Once I got in though, I quickly realized that it doesn’t fucking matter! I don’t believe that no one is watching per se because I mindlessly watch people at the gym all the time. But if they’re watching it’s a passing glance, a mindless stare, same as me. Not only that but watching others is actually how you learn what to do and what not to do. Osmosis baby. Dancing is similar. Once you’re able to convince yourself that nobody’s looking, even if they actually are, you’re free.
My dear friend Michelle has been DJing goth nights here in Philadelphia for many years now; I love her and want to support her like any good friend would, but up until somewhat recently it never occurred to me that I could actually, you know, go to these things. I was too old, or not goth enough, and anyway I didn’t know how to dance. I always try to tell people to never look for reasons not to do things and here I was, inventing them for myself. And for what? So a 25 year old wearing corpse paint and chainmaille whose parents still pay their phone bill won’t point and laugh at me? I want you to please take solace in this indisputable fact: as long as you are behaving and being kind and not weird towards others, nobody fucking cares! They’re probably not even looking at you! And if they are, well, will you even notice it? Let them look!
Think about what it was like when you were in middle school or high school. The dances were awkward. Most of the kids, including yourself most likely, just kind of existed on the perimeters of the room, staring at a wide gulf of an empty dance floor between it. We were all so self-conscious, so worried about being bullied, or looking stupid in front of someone we had a crush on or a cooler kid we aspired to be like. We were simply not meant to carry these insecurities into adulthood and yet, they persist. Again, a lot of this is internalized, and it takes work to unlearn.
Here are the other important things to remember when you’re dancing:
Pick up your feet! You simply must lift both of your feet off the ground at hopefully rhythmic intervals. This is the first thing you should focus on. Shuffling your feet makes the rest of your bodily attempts at moving that much more awkward. This is non-negotiable, fellas. You can tap, twist, and do myriad of other movements, but you must—must!—get the soles of your feet off the ground.
Move your arms a little bit! You’re not a tap dancer, unless you are, which is its own thing and cool in its own right. Nor are you doing a jig, which, if you’re bold enough to do a jig to Boy Harsher or Nine Inch Nails, more power to you I guess. Bend your arms at the elbows and move them from side to side. Put them over your head every now and then. Just do whatever feels appropriate. But move them!
Move your hips a lot! Sway, swivel, twist. Shake your hips and ass, no matter how much you look like Hank Hill back there. Try to stay in rhythm but don’t sweat it if you don’t. Just move, move, move. You’ll probably get better by doing this more, but even if you don’t, do it anyway.
Drink water. Amidst this joy as an act of resistance, please remember that you are exercising. Hydrate! Not just with beer or vodka sodas.
Dance with your friends and don’t worry about finding an attractive stranger to dance with. If you approach a night out dancing with a sole goal of meeting a summer fling or future ex-husband, you’ll pretty much always go home disappointed, discouraged, and sad. Invite your friends, dance with your friends. But if you do ask an attractive stranger to dance, take no for an answer, don’t be weird, and don’t let it discourage you.
There are few better releases available to us than moving our bodies, however badly and awkwardly. Let’s go dancing. If you’re local, I’ll see you at Synthetic on March 21.
Things I Recently Read That Were Cool And Good:
Ping-Pong Paddles to a Gun Fight, by Jeb Lund for TruthDig.
What The Corrections Officer Strike Means To Incarcerated People Like Me, by Robert Pastore for Defector.
Rick Steves, Mild-Mannered Travel Expert, Wants To Radicalize You, by Mary Elizabeth Williams for Salon.
The Full Force Of This Administration’s Destruction Is About To Hit, by Marisa Kabas for The Handbasket.
There Is No Ladder, by Luke O’Neil for Welcome To Hell World.
A Melting Planet Is Endangering Their Foodways—And Their Way Of Life, by Craig LaBan for the Philadelphia Inquirer.