You know what I hate? I hate when I am listening to ridiculous pop hip-hop music, trying to shake it so hard I dislodge my fillings, and then they have to go and break the beat for several measures while the artist — the chicas are particularly egregious offenders — swoops into this ridiculous WAY-OHHH-WAYYY-EEEEIIIIII-OHHHH-YEAHHHHH singsongy thing, kind of like they are trying to perform a pop hip-hop opera, and so I stand there awkwardly for a minute like: I don’t know how to dance to this. I don’t care about your vocal range. Give me the fucking BASS BACK.
I can’t dance, by the way. I like to think I can, especially when I am fortified with vitamins.* But then I catch sight of myself in a mirror and my arm is doing some wonky thing and I’m biting my lip, yes, biting my lip, even though I know that is quickest way to out yourself as the ultimate white girl dance dork. That still doesn’t stop me, though. What I lack in skill I make up for in enthusiasm.
Then I go directly home and put on some Joy Division. Because I can only stand so many lyrics like:
“T, to the A, to the S-T-E-Y / girl you tasty” **
Before my brain starts to wither.
Oh yeah, weddings. How does all this pertain to weddings? I don’t know. I’m sorry, OK? I am not a professional blogger. I am just a chick with a keyboard and a WordPress account and unrestricted internet access. These are dangerous things in the wrong hands.***
Dancing. Weddings. Dancing at weddings. See? I had a topic the entire time.
The beau, in what I suppose can be classified as a reversal of gender stereotypes, wants to take dancing lessons before the wedding. Me, I am like, eh? Whatever. Because while the tiny sliver of myself that secretly wants to be a star wishes we could pull off some ridiculously campy choreographed performance, the reality of the situation is that we can get away with doing the classic prom shuffle-sway for our first dance and no one will notice or even care. In fact, they will probably be too engaged in conversation with their tablemates or too preoccupied taking shots to even watch us most of the time. This is a little truth nugget I’m going to carry with me like a precious gem, for those times I get all squirmy and hand-wringy about ohmigod center-of-attention-anxiety.
Slight aside: The fact that the beau wants to take dancing lessons at all suggests that he doesn’t recall that one time when we took a free basic salsa class and proceeded to step all over each others’ feet. I was always a half measure behind, and in misdirected frustration I hissed that maybe his arms were too short,**** and he didn’t seem to want to dance with me after that. I know, I can’t figure out why either. But if he wants to give it another go-round, I’m totally game.
Still. Lessons or no, I imagine we probably won’t get much farther than the basic shuffle for the first dance. This matters to me naught. For soon we will reach the vitamin-enhanced, put-on-your-crazy-face part of the wedding celebration. I’m definitely not making any guarantees on the quality of dancing during this portion of the evening.
But you can bet your sweet bippy that in every damn picture I’ll be biting my lip.
Are you doing a first dance? Are you dancing at all? Talk to me.
_____________________________________________
* Read: Alcohol.
** Yeah, I’ve stopped trying to figure out that one out, too.
*** Read: Mine.
**** Uh, whut?
For the record, BEP used to be cool, before they added Fergie and started calling themselves BEP
And, yes, no one pays attention to the dance
I am also a victim of the biting the lip, white girl dance and I’m fairly certain we’ll be doing the prom dance shuffle as well. But I’m past caring. And I don’t think anyone will really notice. As long as I can get my boogie on after, I’m good.
Ha ha, I cannot dance. White Jewish lesbians are probubly on the bottom of the dancing ability ladder as far as I know. We actually picked out first dance song because it was the shortest we could find.
Hurrah for you! White girl who can’t dance, but doesn’t freaking care and dances anyways! I think I rock at dancing, until I’m sober… Hahaha… FH also thinks he can dance, so we make a great pair. Every wedding we go to we dance our feeties off, looking like incompetent losers the whole time.
Why yes, I demonstrated this awkward white girl dance myself on Wednesday night. And no, I don’t give a damn who pays attention or not. Because it’s more fun that way.
And prom shuffle, ftw. I have enough on my wedding plate without adding dancing lessons, thanks.
we’re not much of the crazy loud dancing type. I’m more of a sit and chat in a pub kind of girl versus go out dancing in a nightclub. Fiance and I spend our nights with friends with takeout, movies, board games and whiskey. Our first dance is to a van morrison song and we’ll have some slow, bluesy, ballad type songs playing but the focus will be mostly on the food and chatting with our friends who will come from all over the place.
I don’t think we’re doing a first dance – I’d rather not have everyone watch us and I want to spare guests like me who get incredibly bored and just want to get down on the dance floor. So our ‘first dance’ will likely be in the midst of some other songs with everyone else out on the dance floor too. I’m glad I have lots of time to hang out with all the guests between the ceremony and dinner because instead of mingling I will likely be white girl dancin’ until the music is turned off.