Posted May 4, 2008

I am often asked why I am able to enjoy myself at holiday parties while most people avoid them like...well, like holiday parties.

I'm not talking about harmless little office parties, where the worst thing that happens is someone gets drunk and makes a harmless pass at the boss's spouse and then gets harmlessly fired.

I'm talking about holiday parties like the one I went to this past season. It was at a local museum where my wife volunteers, and every year the museum puts on a tasteful gathering for its volunteers and staff which, near as I can tell, they finance by selling a couple of Picasso paintings.

The highlight of the party is always a real, live DJ playing real, live dance music, which allows all the museum people to leave the 16th century behind and lose themselves in the intoxicating rhythms of modern-day music known far and wide as disco.

My strategy for enjoying myself at such an event is to arrive early and determine the exact location of the dance floor. Sometimes, a GPS radio is a major help because later on the room will be jammed with pulsating bodies and, with a couple of hot toddies in you and the music starting to play, the absolute last thing you want is not to know exactly where the dance floor is.

So you can get as far away from it as humanly possible without requiring a visa.

I cannot overemphasize this point. You do not want to be anywhere near the dance floor unless you are a combination of Gene Kelly in "Singin' In the Rain," John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," and half the patients in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Trust me, you're not.

You are the same uncoordinated, feet-glued-to-the-floor, steel-rebars-for-legs, knee-bone-connected-to-the-collar-bone space-alien-with-a-limp you were in college.

You don't swing your hips any better than you did at your high school prom, unless you are measuring raw tonnage moved.

Yes, unfortunately, after all these years, you are still a guy.

You have the natural sense of rhythm of a tsunami.

Many people know this. That is why, when the DJ starts playing disco music, the dance floor is deserted.

Do not be fooled when two women get up to dance with each other. Resist the urge to rescue them from dancing with each other. Do not think this is your opportunity to get lost in the music. Your only hope is to get lost in a crowd, and two young women don't count.

Plus, they are not guys. They know how to dance. They understand this. That is why they are dancing with each other and not with their dates.

Above all, do not get up on the dance floor and dance with these two women.

First of all, they are lost in the music. As a guy, you will never look lost in the music. Just lost.

Second, women look good on a dance floor if they are just curling their hair.

There is a reason for this.

They are not trying to impress other women like you are. They are not trying to look cool.

They are there to enjoy themselves and get lost in the music. They do not want you to get lost in the music with them. Just to get lost.

They may smile at you and face you when they dance. They are doing this to etch the image of your spastic body in their memories so they can describe it to their girlfriends when they get back to their table.

If they want to grab a picture of you with their cell phone it is not so they can call you next week. It is so they can post your video on YouTube. This will not get you a call from Dancing With the Stars, though The Biggest Loser may still be in production.

On the bright side, you and the girls do have something in common. She reminds you of your youth.

Unfortunately, you remind her of her youth which, unlike you, she still has. And doesn't want to be reminded that she will someday lose it and be like you.

With better legs.

©2008 Jay Douglas