This past weekend, I went dancing. PRIME OPPORTUNITIES FOR AWKWARDNESS ABOUND.
Where do you think I get all these absurd stories? The library?
Really.
Saturday afternoon we danced under a pavilion in a local park. The weather was absolutely perfect and the DJs were playing some GREAT MUSIC. All in all, it really was the perfect afternoon to be outside dancing. About midway through the afternoon, a man approached me, I assumed, to ask me to dance.
We all know what happens when I make assumptions.
He says to me, “I’ve never seen you here before. Do you dance here often?” I say, “I’m not from here. I’m visiting from out of town. “
Awkward silence.
Since YOU won’t ask, I WILL. “Do you want to dance?” (What ELSE are you going to do at a pavilion SPECIFICALLY RENTED for a lindy hop dance?)
He hems and haws and finally says that he can’t because he has somewhere else to be. At this point, I am secretly calculating how long I have to get out of this weird conversation before the next song starts. Don’t judge. Judging from the sweat dripping off the other dancers, and their relative shortness of breath, I realize I have about a minute and a half to get this guy to leave me alone so I can find someone else who actually wants to dance and will not creep me out.
All of a sudden, he reaches for my hand. He says, “Well, maybe we can dance for a little bit out here, on this sidewalk, away from the pavilion.” Um. Okay. He leads me to an empty place on the sidewalk and begins to sway back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Back and forth.
I’m waiting for a rock step. An arm lifted to signal a turn. Jazz hands. The Hokey Pokey. ANYTHING.
And then it hits me.
This creeper of a dude that has now wasted TWO SONGS of my afternoon dance and 10 exhausting minutes of my life DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DANCE.
I start looking around, praying, WILLING for someone to save me from the awkwardness that is this moment. No one. Of course not. Everyone is DANCING. On the DANCE FLOOR.
My friend Jim stealthfully sneaks behind us to take our picture. I grimace, hoping he will see me and SAVE ME. He is gone in half a second, off to take pictures of people that are actually lindy hopping. Sigh.
Meanwhile, while I am calculating how I will gracefully exit this conversation. His swaying slows. He stops dancing. And stares at me. He is stroking my hands now.
He looks at me intently. “You should take off your sunglasses. I don’t even know what you look like.”
What? Why are you even here? YOU’RE NOT EVEN DANCING. STOP TOUCHING ME.
(Look in the picture. DO YOU SEE HIM HOLDING MY HANDS?!)
I take off my sunglasses and put them on my head. I catch my friend’s eye in the process (help. me.) and turn back to my non dancing friend.
“Well,” he says,
“You’re pretty enough.”
I glare at him with my best what-the-heck-is-your-problem-you-are-such-a-jerk-may-the-lice-of-a-thousand-camels-build-a-shopping-mall-in-your-armpits-go-away-now-RUDE stare. I thank him icily for the dance (a girl’s gotta have SOME manners, after all), and turn away. He grabs my arm…
“Can I have your number? Please?! I might never see you again!!”
In my head that translates to, “Do you have a boyfriend? Is he big? Is he hefty? Is he comin’ back?”
Where do you think I get all these absurd stories? The library?
Really.
Saturday afternoon we danced under a pavilion in a local park. The weather was absolutely perfect and the DJs were playing some GREAT MUSIC. All in all, it really was the perfect afternoon to be outside dancing. About midway through the afternoon, a man approached me, I assumed, to ask me to dance.
We all know what happens when I make assumptions.
He says to me, “I’ve never seen you here before. Do you dance here often?” I say, “I’m not from here. I’m visiting from out of town. “
Awkward silence.
Since YOU won’t ask, I WILL. “Do you want to dance?” (What ELSE are you going to do at a pavilion SPECIFICALLY RENTED for a lindy hop dance?)
He hems and haws and finally says that he can’t because he has somewhere else to be. At this point, I am secretly calculating how long I have to get out of this weird conversation before the next song starts. Don’t judge. Judging from the sweat dripping off the other dancers, and their relative shortness of breath, I realize I have about a minute and a half to get this guy to leave me alone so I can find someone else who actually wants to dance and will not creep me out.
All of a sudden, he reaches for my hand. He says, “Well, maybe we can dance for a little bit out here, on this sidewalk, away from the pavilion.” Um. Okay. He leads me to an empty place on the sidewalk and begins to sway back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Back and forth.
I’m waiting for a rock step. An arm lifted to signal a turn. Jazz hands. The Hokey Pokey. ANYTHING.
And then it hits me.
This creeper of a dude that has now wasted TWO SONGS of my afternoon dance and 10 exhausting minutes of my life DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DANCE.
I start looking around, praying, WILLING for someone to save me from the awkwardness that is this moment. No one. Of course not. Everyone is DANCING. On the DANCE FLOOR.
My friend Jim stealthfully sneaks behind us to take our picture. I grimace, hoping he will see me and SAVE ME. He is gone in half a second, off to take pictures of people that are actually lindy hopping. Sigh.
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY IN THIS WORLD SAVE ME NOW.
Meanwhile, while I am calculating how I will gracefully exit this conversation. His swaying slows. He stops dancing. And stares at me. He is stroking my hands now.
He looks at me intently. “You should take off your sunglasses. I don’t even know what you look like.”
What? Why are you even here? YOU’RE NOT EVEN DANCING. STOP TOUCHING ME.
(Look in the picture. DO YOU SEE HIM HOLDING MY HANDS?!)
I take off my sunglasses and put them on my head. I catch my friend’s eye in the process (help. me.) and turn back to my non dancing friend.
“Well,” he says,
“You’re pretty enough.”
I glare at him with my best what-the-heck-is-your-problem-you-are-such-a-jerk-may-the-lice-of-a-thousand-camels-build-a-shopping-mall-in-your-armpits-go-away-now-RUDE stare. I thank him icily for the dance (a girl’s gotta have SOME manners, after all), and turn away. He grabs my arm…
“Can I have your number? Please?! I might never see you again!!”
In my head that translates to, “Do you have a boyfriend? Is he big? Is he hefty? Is he comin’ back?”
Here is the link to the original video:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7elZMMv2pE
As a guy, that has rarely happened in reverse, and never now that I am married...just mention my wife and the stalker disappears, but on the rare occasion when I was single that a girl seemed to want more than just a dance, I found the, "Thanks for the dance, I am going to dance with someone else now." line was direct and worked very well.
ReplyDeleteYvonne? Yvonney vonney vonney! Work that up-do!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, creepers are... creepy. I wish there was a better way for polite women (such as ourselves) to gracefully get out of these situations. That is my number 1 complaint to not having a boyfriend - I can't use mention of his name to save me, and I am a terrible lier...so, there is basically no hope. I feel your pain.