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Dancing is stupid

stan.bar

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Re: Dancing is stupid

#91

Post by darkerside »

martindbp wrote: post #62

I don't look down on dancing, but like with everything really people are just different, there's no Tabula Rasa. No amount of trying will make me enjoy dance (believe me I've tried), just as my wife who is a dancer will never consider an afternoon spent reading a sci-fi novel to be the epitome of happiness. Unfortunately dance is something that pops up at parties and other occasions, and it's implied that you're weir…

You can't change anybody, you can only influence them to change. You can't learn anything from a book that you didn't already know. I don't know how to say it exactly, but I've seen enough people change, and how that happens, to know that you and your wife's tastes may change over time. You don't have to be open to the possibility of you don't want to be, but it does remind me of another phrase: I'm not a math person.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#92

Post by RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm »

crazygringo wrote: post #90
Trasmatta wrote: post #19

There's something about dancing that people get really weird about if you don't want to participate. As if it's their god given duty to convince you that, no, you really DO like dancing, and you'll have a great time if you just loosen up and have fun. I wish people would just respect "no thank you" and stop trying to push people to do something they clearly don't want. As is, I have to avoid events with dancing. And…

A lot of people genuinely feel super self-conscious about dancing and do need that convincing to give themselves permission to dance. And once they do, they love it. A lot of people need to also have a couple drinks to loosen up enough to enjoy it as well. I was in both of these categories for a looong time. So it's not a "god given duty to convince", it's just that it's a genuine act of friendship and support that a…

> So people try to convince you for a bit, and if you still refuse, then they leave you alone. It seems like a workable compromise.

And what they forget while doing that is that they are not the only person existing in the universe:

Others will also attempt to convince the very same non-dancing person to dance.

So if you are at a party, sitting at the bar not dancing, you will have to have this discussion like 5 times in a single evening.

And if you enjoy going to parties even though you don't dance and therefore go regularly, then over the decades you will have to have the discussion thousands of times - which isn't a workable compromise anymore but just an annoyance.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#93

Post by cma »

thriftwy wrote: post #39
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah what folks do nowadays is more like, I don't know, what people did for a million years before courtly Renaissance pedants started codifying it so somebody could be cooler than another person.

Nope! For a million years people spent a lot of effort on culture which meant their tunes (drum rhymes) and dance movements were quite advanced. We live in epoch of deliberate primitivism.

We found dance foot pattern fossils or something?

Re: Dancing is stupid

#94

Post by crazygringo »

darkerside wrote: post #89
maleldil wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so difficult for you to accept that others don't share your taste? I've never been into dancing but decided to take some classes with friends because that sounded fun, and realised that I truly don't like dancing. It has nothing to do with rejection. This claim that "you poor thing, if you hadn't been rejected you'd see how good this is" sounds really condescending.

What kind of dancing? Seems like not liking music, or not liking sex, or not liking outdoor settings. It's really hard to tell if you just haven't found the one that speaks to you yet. Maybe those two things are actually indistinguishable.

I think it's important to be sensitive here. There are people who don't like sex, and people who don't like outdoor settings either.

Now the age-old question is whether, with enough "opening up", they could. And yes, in many cases with enough therapy they could and would. But in other cases, therapy isn't going to achieve that. But regardless, doing therapy is essentially changing yourself to become a different person. And nobody is under the obligation to do therapy, or to grow or change or open up.

So I think it's important to be able to accept at face value that when someone isn't into something, whether it's dance or sex or the outdoors, they just aren't into it. Leave the door open so they know they're invited on your next hike, but zero pressure.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#95

Post by thriftwy »

cma wrote: post #93
thriftwy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope! For a million years people spent a lot of effort on culture which meant their tunes (drum rhymes) and dance movements were quite advanced. We live in epoch of deliberate primitivism.

We found dance foot pattern fossils or something?

We know a few near-neolithic tribes right now.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#97

Post by darkerside »

twawaaay wrote: post #35

> Dancing is a great test of what part of your brain dominates. Good dancing is when you stop thinking and just let your feelings lead. Yah, that's why best dancers in the world never train and prepare their routines. Honestly. Good dancing is when you stop thinking, AFTER you have spent time preparing enough so you don't have to think about it anymore. I wonder if people watching TV or Youtube get the wrong impressi…

> Good dancing is when you stop thinking, AFTER you have spent time preparing enough so you don't have to think about it anymore.

Well, yeah, that's what OP said. Good dancing can happen after lots of training or none at all.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#98

Post by rvieira »

Immanuel Kant famously said

> There are two things that don't have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter.

Surely there are more. Dancing is perhaps one of them.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#100

Post by darkerside »

crazygringo wrote: post #94
darkerside wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of dancing? Seems like not liking music, or not liking sex, or not liking outdoor settings. It's really hard to tell if you just haven't found the one that speaks to you yet. Maybe those two things are actually indistinguishable.

I think it's important to be sensitive here. There are people who don't like sex, and people who don't like outdoor settings either. Now the age-old question is whether, with enough "opening up", they could . And yes, in many cases with enough therapy they could and would. But in other cases, therapy isn't going to achieve that. But regardless, doing therapy is essentially changing yourself to become a different pers…

When people say they're not a math person, I don't pressure them to change, but I do recognize how self limiting and reductive they are being.

Everybody gets to make their own choices on what they will and won't enjoy in life, for sure. I'm not the type of person to apply pressure over something like that. But as someone who learned that physical intelligence is something you can grow in my 30s, I do feel it's a bit of a sacred duty to chip away at the same fixed mindset when I see it in other people.

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