College . 02/22/2008 06:24 AM . Jonathan Carden

I’m a freshman in college.

My first day, I had one thing on my mind. It wasn’t my future, it wasn’t the strange man (roommate) I was going to be living with, and it wasn’t even food. It was “college chicks.”

Honestly, I thought I had game coming into college, and if not game, I had a big truck, which is a nearly even substitute, at least in my Texas hometown. Turns out, college girls aren’t just looking for a cool truck to sit in at the local make out spot (Wal-Mart). Apparently, they have something “classier” in mind.

So far, that “something” can be summed up in three words:

Girls. Love. Dancing.

I know in high school, when we went dancing, it was like swing dancing. I thought that college dancing was going to be like the kind of dancing my mom warned me about, you know, the immoral kind. Turns out, you have to be able to dance to be able to dance immorally.

I’m the guy at the party in the corner doing my best Swayze-Travolta while the girls are like “Did you hear about the new freshman? I think he has a rare mix of Tourette’s and Parkinson’s. Look! There he goes! He looks like he’s trying to communicate with bees or something.”

But that’s not the only kind of dancing that goes on.

Meet my arch-nemesis: swing dancing.

Forget the textbooks and the tests and the up-and-down relationship dynamics. Know what I learned my first semester of college?

Dancing isn’t fun.

No, really, it is NEVER fun.

I went to the Kennedy Center in D.C. my second week of school. It was night time, good weather, and seemed like the perfect spot to swing dance if swing dancing is necessary. Then they started to play music.

When the music starts, it’s like a wicked game of musical chairs. You know you’re supposed to be moving around and finding a chair (woman) but you’re not sure which one, and you’re pretty sure that your life depends on this choice.

There was an interesting twist this night, though … I had girls asking ME to dance. They would come up and be like, “Hey! You want to dance?”

“No.”

“Ha-ha! Kidder! Can you dance?”

“No.”

“You’ve got a great sense of humor! Let’s dance! * forcibly drags me onto the floor *

I understand why they would think I’m joking. I mean, who would go to a dance without a) knowing how to dance and b) wanting to dance. That’d be retarded.

You know who would do that? JONATHAN CARDEN and every other guy who’s ever been tricked into going to a dance, that’s who. They should put warnings on those dance event invites. “WARNING: THERE WILL BE ACTUAL DANCING AT THIS EVENT … WITH WOMEN … AND ELITE MALE DANCERS … YOU WILL STRUGGLE … IN FRONT OF WOMEN … AND ELITE MALE DANCERS!”

See, guys and girls have totally different emotions when they’re going to go dance. Girls are thinking, “Oh, YAY! I get to dance. Dancing is what they do in movies. Every guy there will be an incredible dancer and spin me, which will make my dress swirl gently around the room. I will probably fall in love tonight. Should I call my Mom? Yeah, I probably should.”

Whereas, guys are thinking, “I have to go dance. $50 worth of dance lessons; I remember nothing. I’m supposed to lead. I only have two moves. Why are swing songs 6 minutes long? I don’t understand. Disappointment is creeping onto her face. I’m never going to have a girl talk to me again. I think I’m being blacklisted. Girls are actually avoiding my gaze; like I would ask them to dance. I’m so sweaty. I thought black hid sweat? I can’t even go gay. Gay guys like to dance. I hear monasteries are rare places for dances to happen. I think I just broke a girl’s arm. Note to self: never try to do the pretzel again.”

And guys have only a few options in this case. We can:

a) Learn how to dance (ha. ha.)
b) Stare with unparalleled hatred at the guys who can dance
c) Pretend like we’re “having fun” and not interested in “dancing seriously”
d) Fake an injury (ankle: broken)
e) Some combo of all of the above.

As you might guess, none of these options ever result in having actual fun. We end up stuck in dance lessons we don’t want, hating nice guys who just happen to have been born to twirl the women we want, making a fool of ourselves in attempts to appear casually disinterested, or, my personal favorite, seriously injured.

So, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, let’s sum up this completely non-symbiotic relationship, the terror of which will likely dominate the rest of my college career:

Ladies love to dance.

Guys dread dancing slightly less than they dread passing a kidney stone.

Jonathan Carden is a freshman in college. He is commonly referred to as “The Lord of the Dance.”


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