Last night I was at a fantastic birthday party for my friend Kirk. Being a lindy hopper, of course there was going to be dancing at Kirk's celebration. It was one of the most joyous nights of dancing I've had in awhile, just cutting it up with a dozen or so people to swing-era jazz, soul, old school hip-hop and club tracks. My ideal dance night will include Prince, James Brown, Slim & Slam and maybe even LMFAO. It reminded me of everything I love about social dancing.
By contrast , the other night I was dancing with my hip-hop crew at Butter in the Mission and encountered the thing that keeps from dancing in most dance clubs: horny, drunk dudes on the make.
There were about ten of us, mostly female, jamming in a corner of the bar to hip-hop and club music, just doing our own thing. We were dancing in a circle, clearly staking our own spot on the tiny floor. Others around us were jamming in groups or couples, rocking out in their own way. It was all fine and fun… except for the infestations of creepy dudes that cycled in and out like sharks swilling cheap beer.
Typical strategy would be to sidle into our dance circle, creep up on the girl he was interested in, and start to grind up against her. Sometimes two or even three guys would do this on one girl, for extra creepiness. This would continue with increasing levels of boundary-crossing until the girl would have to tell him to back up or walk away. Or one of us had to intervene and shoo him away.
One gangly young man was making his moves on my friend Rachel who just stopped dancing and said to him, "Seriously? You are like 12 years old!" He shrugged and kept on grinding until he too had to be chased off.
There are just some parts of the male psyche that I will never understand. I've been drunk and I've been horny. But I've never been so drunk or horny that I've found myself thrusting my pelvis toward a girl I didn't know in a bar. It just seems like a really poor strategy to attract that girl's interest. Apparently I'm in the minority since that is exactly what young men think will get them lucky in a dance club.
My crew and I weren't going to let a few wannabe lotharios spoil our fun. We tore it up, funked it up, and broke it down all night, going home in the early morning sweaty and happy.
Still, sometimes I'm just embarassed for my gender.