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Justice sums it up in more detail for me. It just seems silly to me.

The Center for Inquiry is practically next door to me, only 100 km away in Amherst.

This sentence is intrinsically hilarious to Rhode Islanders.

Yes, well, when you live in a state that is smaller than the average SUV, I suppose your perspective on what constitutes "next door" changes. I see from the almanac that Rhode Island is only about 3140 sq.kilometers in size, while the county I live in is 3538 sq. kilometers.

Any man can dance at any age. It's at which point in life does the man stops looking cool and starts looking daft. When I was in my 20's it was great, danced my socks off. Then my 30's started and I became aware that I looked like someone trying to be in his 20's. Women don't suffer this burden, they look ood at any age dancing. Yes, the style changes from young mentalist dancing to granny dancing but, they still look fine.

The only dancing men can do after the age of 30 is ballroom dancing. It's the only dance a 60 plus man can do and make young people look daft trying to do. But, and this is the question. Should anyone give a monkies if they look daft having a good tme and not huting anyone, No. I say to all 30 plus man, dance you self to bits and enjoy it. You will not only have a good time, but give youg people to complain about older people looking daft.

The Center for Inquiry is practically next door to me, only 100 km away in Amherst.

This sentence is intrinsically hilarious to Rhode Islanders.

I can see it now:

A heterogeneous group of 17 to 60 year old UFers gathered around drinking whiskey and wine, some will be cooking and grilling, a few will be gaming, some talking about how screwed-up the rest of the world is, and of course, some will be dancing.

Then there will be those discussing the books they've read, while a couple more are debating politics or medical procedures. And we can't forget those out back partaking in the torching of the hookah.

Even though I only fall into ONE of those groups above, we all have at least the one thing in common that brings us together. What a diversified group it would be.

Has there ever been any kind of an attempt to gather? We could call it the "Association of Talented Humans Especially Intellectually Superior to Theists" group or maybe the "Awesome Taco Heist Electrocutes Idiotic Sand Tiger" conglomerate.

By the way, I have two levels of wood floors AND two wooden decks in the tree tops. All that dance floor just going to waste.

Speaking of nodes of godlessness, The Center for Inquiry is practically next door to me, only 100 km away in Amherst. And it's also on the doorstep of Niagara Falls, which is a tourist trap, but a real must-see nevertheless.

And I, too, have wooden floors.

@Gringa: Don't! Don't tempt me with wooden floors!
*starts the music, tries a planeo on the floor*
-sigh-

Eh.
Sooner or later I shall come to crazy US.
When I do, I'll do my best to visit a few nodes of godlessness... ^_^

@FO - please come down to Charleston on your visit... at least while you are waiting for the snow to melt near Ursa. Hell, why don't you all come down? My house has wood floors. =)

This is an appropriate finale for the thread, I guess... ^_^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBPm2Xom_y4

@Bill: thanks, that was clear.

@Ursa: It will take some time before I can finally give US a fair visit, but I can wait.... ^_^
Depending on the way Tango is taught, having N left feet is largely irrelevant.

Anyway.
Thanks a lot everyone for the useful feedback.
I'll experiment with my advertisement accordingly. =)

@FO:

I've never been threatened with being hunted down and given a free tango lesson before. ;)

I have a distinct overabundance of left feet on the dance floor, so you may be facing one of those Mission Impossible scenarios. But I'm game if you are. The best months to visit these climes are mid-May (for the lilacs) and mid-October (for the fall foliage), so plan accordingly. Of course, foreigners are also impressed by our January snowfall(up to 1.5 meters in a day if we catch a big Nor'easter), but it's really not the sort of thing I recommend to novices, and it is tedious to have to hitch up the dogsled in order to get to the airport to meet someone.

"@Bill: is your "no dancing with work people" rule a rational strategy to avoid problems with your co-workers or a less defined sensation of awkwardness or not fitting in?"

It's not a sense of awkwardness or not fitting in. It's more that I have a certain persona at work, which benefits me in that environment and I don't want to ruin it by making an ass of myself on the dance floor. (Which I inevitably will.)

Custador, that is not at all untrue...but I don't like perspiring profusely in a public setting like a club/bar,in an actual class on something sure but not in a true social setting. Not to mention sweat in my eyes really annoys me,and constantly wiping my face in say a training/working context is fine but in a bar/club uncool for me.

Never have, and never will.

The very few times I have tried to dance, it was one of the most awkward and uneasy feelings I've ever had.

Possible reasons:

Insecure about showing my ass? Maybe.

Preference to hard rock not easy to dance to? Possibly.

Distaste for dance music? definitely.

Introvert not wanting to draw attention to oneself? Could be.

Not having the need to ever learn how to dance? Yeah.

Thinking that anyone who wanted to dance was completely and utterly different from what I thought was consistent with my lifestyle? No doubt.

Is it just a deep-seated social construct where men must be machos and can't let themselves go?

This might be part of it. I just can't see myself on a dance floor convulsing and twitching to some awful dance music like some mindless zombie.

I guess I'm just more restrained than some.

I'm not the most coordinated person......but I dance all the time. Door closed, door open, I like to move my body. Never had too much in the way of lessons, but I got some moves still hahaha. I like working the swing step into everything cause it's easy, I know it, and I can mess around with my arms while keeping my feet going.

Neither in high school nor in college have I met that many guys who didn't at least like to dance to club music, dubstep, or something similar. My school's been on this annoying dubstep kick for the last three years. I don't like the rhythms much though.

Yeah, I kinda agree with Custador on that one.

And knowing how to control your body...sexy in women and men alike, even if you can't do too many complicated things.

It's been my experience that a surprising number of women find something attractive about a perspiring man :-/

In my case I tended to spend time weight lifting, and gaming(rpg's),or playing football, and doing martial arts when I was a teen,after leaving the Marines(never went to the balls) I continued with most of those activities(excluding football). I also started drinking in bars..where I was much more comfy near my beer than on a dance floor..as I never spent the time learning to dance,also there is the whole getting hot and sweaty in public with a woman which never seemed to be a good strategy to me when I was single. I tend to sweat profusely during arobic activity...which leads to at least some odor issues. Thus I don't dance,nor is it an activity I think of as fun,though probably that has to do with never learning any dances. Granted while single I did go to clubs,but that was to keep an eye on the women I dated....though I will also say I never wanted to look like a fool on a dance floor,and hate dance music. So for me it wasn't cultural....and when I was for a bit involved in the SCA I gravited towards the fighter practice and avoided the dancers and period Natzi's...and left the whole thing behind because of cost in general...it can be quite expensive.

Yes, if I weren't uncoordinated, I would be willing to dance. I don't know about team sports though. I don't really like games. Even the kind where I can sit.

@Bill: is your "no dancing with work people" rule a rational strategy to avoid problems with your co-workers or a less defined sensation of awkwardness or not fitting in?

@Noelle: Same question I asked to Brian M: if you were coordinated and had sense of rythm, would you dance or do sports?

@Ursa: If I ever get in reach of you, I'm teaching tango to you and your husband, for free. Promise! ^_^

@Custy: Definitely... MDMA is the solution to all evils!

@ FO: Bring free coolers to your lessons and spike them with MDMA. Then you'll have trouble STOPPING people from dancing.

I would love to learn to dance. I'm self-conscious about it because I'm clumsy on the dance floor- which keeps me from learning to dance. In general, I'm fairly well coordinated, but social awkwardness turns me into a klutz when the music starts.

I do not like to dance if people can see me. But I'm not a man, so that doesn't much help your question. My husband did enjoy dancing as a college kid. But since he married me, hasn't been much opportunity for him to dance.

I also hate sports for the same reason I hate dancing. I'm horribly uncoordinated, have no sense of inner rhythm, and get all embarrassed if I know someone can see me doing something I'm bad at.

For me it depends on the setting. As a young man I danced a lot. Many weekends involved finding clubs, which always meant dancing all night. I enjoyed it a lot, and honestly I guess I still do. As a middle aged guy I have very few opportunities to really go out dancing anymore though. I do go to a lot of concerts and can often be found bouncing in the mosh pit with people half my age. (Which I suppose is a kind of dancing.)

I work in a fairly conservative environment though, and every so often find myself in a social setting where dancing with work colleagues is a possibility. I have a strict no dancing with work people rule. I tend to let loose when I dance and I don't want that hanging over me at work. I suspect that there are men who view the whole world that way, and that the possible embarassment of how they look dancing keeps them from participating.

I studied/dabbled with ballet for a little while. It was a lot of fun, and I'll probably end up taking some partner dancing classes at my gf's request in the future. I didn't continue with ballet partly due to college taking up my time, partly due to not wanting to put in the home-practice time needed to keep up with the rest of the class (I'm lazy, admittedly :P I'd rather obsessively analyze Firefly :D), and partly because the classmates were sorta cliquish. I think the normal tendency for cliques was intensified given that we're in the bible belt, and it seemed like half the ballet class was made up of folks from the local homeschooling group... while my folks homeschooled, around here, "homeschooling group" is equal to "fundamentalist Christian" group, so we don't really gel with them. :p I actually got into an argument about evolution with a couple of the young ladies in class backstage during a production of the Nutcracker. :p So yeah... I personally don't have anything against dancing as a guy, I'll probably do it again sometime, I just had other things to do at the time, and this particular group didn't gel with me (by which I mean the students, the teacher was excellent).

@Brian: if your poor coordination/clumsiness didn't matter, do you think you would enjoy it?

Social awkwardness combined with poor coordination/clumsyness = me no dance!

@FO - don't worry, I had some underground tips on where to go. Also found a rueda group in Peru that meets on top of a mall in Lima once/week through some insider tips, and another group in Paris that dances on the shore of the Seine. You can't just find this stuff in the phone book!

I think it has to do with personality and life experience. Some people have trouble letting go of themselves or haven't been in enough social situations where they have done it and felt comfortable. That's why so many people drink to get started, so that they feel more comfortable (though I always find that it makes me unstable on my feet so I prefer to drink water). Plus, don't you think that dancers gravitate to eachother? We have something in common - a love of music and dance. People may find that it's a hard clique to break into. It's up to the rest of us to make the new comers feel comfortable. These are my theories.

@Francesco: the first time I get to Rome, YOU are going to dance... ^_^

@Ursa: well US is still Western culture... =(

@Gringa: Buenos Aires is where my dreams about tango got raped.
It is the last place where you want to learn the dance, for them it is just something they sell to tourists.
I don't either care what I look when I dance, but a lot of people do.

Fuck, is all this just pressure to conform, conscious or otherwise?
What makes those men that have no problems with it special?
What is the difference?