206 - Redux: Destroy the (Wedding) Circle ⭕👯
Hey there, !
In this piece I just want you to hear about a rant that I'm getting into and trying to persuade people of.
The gist is, if you're at a wedding, destroy the circle.
Know what I'm talkin' about?
So, when you're at a wedding and the dance floor opens, you know, maybe after the bride and groom have done their first dance or something, then everyone's partying and having a great time. The initial mob is great, everyone's having fun and dancing with their friends, the DJ's pumping the tunes - it's just all peachy.
And then slowly, insidiously, larger circles form. If you were an external observer in the rafters and looked at it from above, you would see water droplets of space coalescing into each other to make bigger water droplets, until suddenly there's only one big circle of empty space.
Now, in most situations what will happen is that the bride, groom, bridesmaids or groomsmen will fill that space and have fun trying to pull people into the middle, try some cliche dance moves and then retreat back to the outside of the circle.
Once this happens, there's a short lull, before the Dancing Dude/Dudette (there's always one) will then enter the space, filling it with extremely well-rehearsed and choreographed dance moves because they're freaking great (and it is highly entertaining!), BUT will then lead everyone else to shame in terms of trying to follow them up because I mean, who can?
And then comes the awkward period, where no-one is going into the middle, and yet everyone is expecting someone to go in, but no-one can because the Dancing Dude/Dudette has put you all to shame. (An optional timeline here is where drunk/wasted attendee/s jumps into the middle, and you kinda just want it to end as soon as possible anyway). In addition, you're dancing with people to the left and right of you, but you don't necessarily know who they are, and/or instead you're staring at someone across the other side of the circle that you don't really know, and who is probably just thinking the same thing as you - 'what are we doing here? what is happening??'
This is the pivotal moment.
You have to close the circle.
You have to be brave, turn your back to the empty space behind you, and gather the friends you actually want to hang out with in to your own sub-circle that defies the overarching trend of The Big Circle.
You need courage and strength to swim against the current, but you also need to have FUN with the people you actually want to hang out with. Honestly, probably one of the greatest quality of life improvements at a wedding is to know when to close the circle. Some people are really good at getting everyone to do it too - managing to collapse the circle quickly and efficiently. I'm not there yet, but it's only a matter of time.
So anyway, try it next time.
Destroy the circle.
Chat soon :)