Observations and advice on dancing

[missroserose]

I've been going out dancing on a once- or twice-weekly basis for some time now, and I've made some interesting observations during the times when I wasn't busy grooving myself.  Given how dance floors are (thanks to the loud music) necessarily a place where body language reigns, I sometimes feel like I get a better feel for social interactions than when I'm listening to conversations, where people can use words to obfuscate their meaning as well as clarify it.

One thing I've noticed is how differently women and men tend to dance, at least at the venues here in this town.  Women tend to congregate in groups and kind of groove in place, sometimes adding in arm movements, whereas men (at least the few who are brave enough to give it a go) tend to go solitary and move around the floor a lot more.  When a mixed-sex couple dances together, a lot of my impression of their relationship comes from how they move - couples who are comfortable with each other tend to move more or less equally, whereas with couples who (I theorize; I admit I don't have much hard data to back this up) are in unhealthy relationships there's a notable imbalance, not to mention a distinct difference in the way that they move.

Something else that puzzles me is how few girls seem to know how to attract male attention.  I know a lot of girls who dance just want to groove by themselves, which is just fine, but more than once I've seen a girl dancing with her friends and sneaking furtive glances towards some dude or other who's oblivious to her.  More than once I've just wanted to take her aside, sit her down and explain to her that male attention isn't hard to get:  Dancing sexy is all well and good, but if you're trying to get someone's specific attention, you have to make eye contact.  Not the furtive glances, but long, lingering looks.  So few girls seem to understand that eye contact is the key to seduction - you can make anything from dancing to eating to twirling your hair look sexy if you hold someone's eye while you do it.  I think a lot of girls/women are uncomfortable with the concept because they see it as too aggressive, and it is - you're issuing a challenge to the person, telling them you're interested, asking them if they have the guts to answer.  It takes a lot of self-confidence, and people might snicker at you, but it's only because they can't handle it themselves.  (One of my favorite memories from high school is from my junior year, when word got around that despite my being the girl all the other girls laughed at, somehow I'd had (gasp!) eight boyfriends!  And suddenly those same girls who laughed started coming to me for advice.)  Some guys will get weirded out by the challenge, but in my experience they've universally been the sort who couldn't handle a real relationship anyway; a dude who's self-confident enough to treat his partner as an equal will be inexorably drawn to the attention.  Guys are just as nervous as girls about rejection, and the sheer fact that you're indicating your interest is enough to instantly make you sexier to him than any number of other girls in the room who are studiously avoiding eye contact.

Now, to be honest, I'm just curious why it is that I seem to have always known this instinctively, when so many girls seem so completely clueless about it.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's (the movement thing) always about relationship dynamics. I think that I move more than most of my partners do when dancing, but I think that it has more to do for us with comfort levels dancing. Most of my partners like to dance but are very shy/self-conscious about it.