Parties and dancing

[Charlotte Mew]

'I sat watching people dance for a while - the best way to extract any real enjoyment from dancing, I've always thought, but I seem to be unusual in not gaining any real pleasure from performing the movements...'

Prentice McHoan in Iain Banks 'the Crow Road'.

Yes. That's exactly how I feel. Have done for years and years though when I was young I did dance and I suppose I must have enjoyed it. I can remember enjoying it. I certainly don't now and it is not simply that I've got arthritis.  The trouble with watching is that people tend to think you are miserable and say pitying things.  That may be because after a while of watching I get terribly bored.  I would so much prefer it if everyone would sit around making amusing conversation without loud music but that can be hard to find. 

Really I wish people would indicate better what is liable to be going on at parties and events so I can avoid them if there is nothing for me. 

Am I peculiar (as the Banks quotation might indicate) or are there many of us?

[Peca]

No, you're not peculiar, I am a 'can't dance, won't dance' person.  I do like to watch people dance though, I like the energy that's radiated.

[kiawe]

Unfortunately for me you are not peculiar.

<--loves to dance but surrounded by non-dancers.

The other day I found myself in the watching mode. Went with friends to a salsa club but I can't do any step/partner dances. I enjoyed it. I prefer watching people dance to feeling uncomfortable and out of place at a talky gathering.

[spanky @ass]

I'm not a party person (I don't think - thinking party means lots of people in limited space kinda thing, with music that's not to my taste ever).

I like dancing, though to truly get lost in the music and the rhythm, I prefer alone, though the ideal would be to have a partner to do it with, preferably amongst a clearing in the trees. Where am I going to fine one of them? 

So, no CM, dancing in parties is not my thing either.

[BabyBoy]

As someone who was a teenager in the Disco era and who was also into Northern Soul, I'm the opposite. I loved dancing and did it nearly every night for years. I loved the feeling of getting into the music so much that I felt like I was floating above the dancefloor. I loved the collective Soul-loving crowd and the up atmosphere in the clubs, everybody happy and totally into the music. It was wonderful and I miss it so much. 
I'll still dance if I can find anywhere playing the right music, and I dance in my living room sometimes. I have exes who used to love watching me dance for them.

[Night Nurse]

I love dancing and I get jealous if I don't like the music that everyone else is prancing around happily to. But if I do like the music but am too tired to dance (or whatever), I love watching other people.

[lust for life]

I used to enjoy the energy of being in a place with lots of lesbians/women, and the only place to find this was at a women's disco.

But these days I manage to get enough contact with women in places I enjoy more - where it is about talking and communicating, and I'm less concerned about whether those women are lesbians or not, as long as we're generally on the same wavelength.

I was half planning to go to an oldies disco with my main group of women friends, but then I realised that it's the conversation in the bar before the club I enjoyed more than the club itself.  I found myself at a disco on holiday recently and found that toetapping in the semi-darkness just doesn't do it for me.  I also discovered on the same holiday just how much I rely on lip-reading - chatting to someone the other side of the bus seat required manouvering into the right place to see through the gap in the seats.  If it's quiet, I don't need the extra visuals, but with background noise (bus, disco etc) I most definitely do.

So here's another "you're not strange" checking in then!

[Statue]

I like Fire Poi dance/Led poi. Can't use fire without setting myself alight though, I'm not good enough, so I use led or plain. I haven't practiced in ages though, I was gonna learn some hyper-loop stuff. 

I like watching people freestyle to music, their styles. Never been to a beach party, but would love to see someone fire spin/dance under moonlight, that would be ace. 

I don't mind loud music, it's the only type of loud noise I can tolerate. Like to dance in general, but for myself.       

[Heretic]

I love dancing. And I love watching professional dance too.

[purelybyaccident]

I used to love, love it, and in my teens and early 20's hardly a week went by when there wasn't a party to go to and I'd dance my little legs off.Nowadays though, I feel loath to throw myself on the dance floor, but I just can't help it sometimes and I feel so terribly embarrassed by it afterwards, I certainly can't stand the thought of watching myself dancing either. I must try to refrain from doing things that I loathe to do.

[Sorted]

Oh I don't really dance.

[Plus One]

I like a boogey, preferably in a large close crowd so I don't feel so self conscious. I generally need more than a few vodkas to help. 

[Grey]

I'm always the butch in the perfectly pressed shirt quietly sitting in the corner while girlfriends partners mates dance
I think being butch I can get away with it easier-I rarely have someone trying to drag me onto the floor and there's usually someone taking a break and wanting to chat
I do hate it when the Femmes leave me in charge of all the purses and handbags though 

[Charlotte Mew]

Oh no Grey - I really don't think you should be used as an informal cloakroom. Hmmm  Not unless of course, you have ever got femmes to carry items for you so they don't spoil the line of your jacket. If you do, it's perfectly fair. .

Mandy I have indeed felt joy in dance in my life. I remember jiving vividly and also demonstrating, on Dijon platform at 3 am,  how the French did the Twist in 1961.    But I seldom do now, it seems to have run out, though I can enjoy watching others and watching professional dance. But because I don't feel it now myself I can understand people who never have danced. Definitely they exist.   PBA you shouldn't be embarassed to dance!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

I like all kinds of parties accept the "And where do you fit in?" and "what do you do?" too formal sort, which I can't stand anymore and had to go to one last weekend.

I love dancing at parties especially at house parties when everyone joins in. 

I like talking to all kinds of new people at parties but not that social small talk at those sort of parties where people mainly stands around talking about their boring jobs and being smug and only eating tiny bits of food. I can do it but now it bores me, that's why I like dancing  at parties even dancing to bad music is better than pointless party talking.