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Dancing is stupid

stan.bar

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Re: Dancing is stupid

#121

Post by feanaro »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #75
Trasmatta wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe not the wedding depending on the couple. "Maybe" implying that there are weddings I shouldn't attend because I don't like dancing? And I shouldn't go to live music or house parties because it's weird to do so if I don't like dancing? Nahh, miss me with that. This is exactly what I mean. The only weird thing here is the idea that I shouldn't go out and have fun with friends because I don't like to dance. Peopl…

You can do whatever you want man, it's 2023. If your friends like to dance and you're sat in the corner on your phone then you look like a weirdo. That doesn't mean you can't go out and have fun, it means owning the fact that your choices mark you as being different.

So what if they're different? Your engagement with them still carries that faint undertone of judgement. Just leave it.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#122

Post by Encrust6221 »

Darkstryder wrote: post #11

> I’ve never heard of a family being divided because its members dance different styles, but I am in one divided by political and religious opinions. Being a dancer (lindy hop) with a large number of dancers in my social circle, dancing is actually a frequent source of tension among many couples around me. Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence. And d…

> Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.

This unnerves me. My partner could and would dance all day, anywhere, any scenario. I have to be unbelievably drunk to come close to anything resembling dancing. Any event we go to together that involves dancing is intensely emotionally debilitating to me for that reason, and sometimes I worry that it's a basal insurmountable incompatibility between us.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#123

Post by lamontcg »

As a cave/tech diver I've noticed that intellectuals are often have some of the hardest times in training due to overthinking.

They'll tend to focus on trying to perfect the little details in training and miss the big picture and failed to K.I.S.S. and argue about theory and resist accepting simple rules.

I used to really like watching Deadliest Catch because I grew up in Kodiak and that's a good example of an environment where an intellectual would generally fail pretty badly. You don't need to be particularly clever, you need to understand what is going to kill you (ropes in particular) and to never pick up your feet. It is an environment where you need to be smart enough to follow the rules, and just "dumb" enough not to argue and question them. Embracing shutting up and being dumb is something that intellectuals generally resist identifying as a virtue.

[ And I'd argue that the infestation of contrarianism-for-contrarianisms-sake that infects HN is a larger symptom of that psychological bias -- so many people doing so much work convincing themselves that they're very clever by rejecting all conventional wisdom ]

Re: Dancing is stupid

#124

Post by ashwagary »

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…

>I don't look down on dancing, but like with everything really people are just different

>No amount of trying will make me enjoy dance

Dancing is primarily sexual signaling to potential mates and competition. Being effortlessly good at it's indirect proof that you are atleast somewhat good in bed and are in tune enough to engage in a variety of non-verbal communication and phonic based jousting.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#125

Post by lib-dev »

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 live in epoch of deliberate primitivism.

Maybe we prefer a more primitive lifestyle.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#126

Post by QuantumGood »

lamontcg wrote: post #123

As a cave/tech diver I've noticed that intellectuals are often have some of the hardest times in training due to overthinking. They'll tend to focus on trying to perfect the little details in training and miss the big picture and failed to K.I.S.S. and argue about theory and resist accepting simple rules. I used to really like watching Deadliest Catch because I grew up in Kodiak and that's a good example of an enviro…

Less commonly but more dangerously, an excess of overconfidence also makes poor learners—they take action faster than most, but get into trouble due to failure to realize all they have to learn.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#127

Post by doop »

dorchadas wrote: post #107
doop wrote: post #45

Great article! Also: > I’ve never heard of a family being divided because its members dance different styles Anyone who believes this needs to go watch Strictly Ballroom (1992) with all possible urgency. I was also somewhat sceptical about dancing until in my early 20s I made the discovery that nightclubs were not necessarily just places where people went to get shitfaced, but that there were places run by and for en…

Any advice on where to start for someone who'd like to learn to dance better at nightclubs?

Find a style of music you enjoy listening to, then go to a club that plays it, and start dancing. Keep doing that.

You might find that your taste shifts a bit over time, and that's fine, and it's fine to shop around a bit: the point is to try to find an environment where you can lose yourself in the music. If you're very self-conscious about your dancing then try to find a more underground scene (I started off in industrial/EBM and moved on to psytrance): partly because people are just more serious about the music and less about trying to hook up, partly because even if you're the world's worst dancer it won't matter because people will just assume you're having a great time because you've taken lots of drugs. Be considerate, give people space, and stay hydrated.

Once you've found your groove - once you've found yourself whooping as the beat drops, once you've found that weird moment where the dancefloor moves in unison and dissolved yourself into it, once you've exchanged exhausted happy grins with the person next to you as the lights go up at 7am - then, if you want to, you can start focussing on technique, on learning new tricks and moves, but it doesn't really matter by then. It's not a competitive sport; the point is not to be good at it, the point is to do it.

Drugs are neither necessary nor sufficient.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#128

Post by jimmygrapes »

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…

I grew up in an environment (and tbh am still in it despite huge geographical movement) where the prevalent message was "white men can't dance". The only nuance when I argued things like "what about swing, etc." was "nobody listens to that anymore".

I am not white (Anglo-Saxon), but I might as well be. I have a sense of rhythm and am flexible and in decent shape, but I also have aversion to attention for both related and unrelated reasons.

Every time dancing comes up, even "white" dancing like line dancing, I avoid it when I can get away with it, because "white men can't dance".

What do?

Re: Dancing is stupid

#129

Post by lamontcg »

QuantumGood wrote: post #126
lamontcg wrote: post #123

As a cave/tech diver I've noticed that intellectuals are often have some of the hardest times in training due to overthinking. They'll tend to focus on trying to perfect the little details in training and miss the big picture and failed to K.I.S.S. and argue about theory and resist accepting simple rules. I used to really like watching Deadliest Catch because I grew up in Kodiak and that's a good example of an enviro…

Less commonly but more dangerously, an excess of overconfidence also makes poor learners—they take action faster than most, but get into trouble due to failure to realize all they have to learn.

That might actually be more common? That's definitely the one that I everyone needs to guard against, since it also strikes as complacency for the intermediate person.

Re: Dancing is stupid

#130

Post by grapesurgeon »

darkerside wrote: post #99

Why is this flagged? Genuinely curious. Do people feel attacked because it doesn't give with their worldview?

i think it might just be due to not being considered relevant to what hn posts are usually about, and is just an emotionally charged blogpost.
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