You Might Want To Sit Down For This

When Carlos, whose Grandmother makes salsa, sent out a mass email about a ballroom dancing class, I was unsurprised. That’s the sort of thing that Carlos would do. Of course he would, ballroom dancing, ahh, that Carlos! I, meanwhile, had no interest whatsoever.

Remember Opposite Day in second grade, where everything meant the opposite of what it normally meant? For instance, if someone asked you how you were doing, and you were fine, you’d say “I’m bad, but not like Michael Jackson,” or something similar. If it was cold you decided that it was hot, if your shirt was purple you decided that it was…the opposite of purple. Thank God I never wore purple shirts. That would have blown my mind. Anyway, these days, though perhaps no less puerile, I get into occasional kicks where I try to do exactly the opposite of what Eric Furst would normally do. Young Master Furst, it would seem, falls into ruts.

Never is it more evident than when I run in the woods. I tend to make similar decisions when I arrive at bifurcation points. I, for instance, always take the trail that seems like it will be longer and harder. Over time, I end up running the periphery of all of my woods, leaving the middle untouched. It is in this context that my modern day opposite days started. I’d get into the woods, come to a fork and say to myself “what would I do here?” then take the other option. I’ve found trails in woods that I’ve run hundreds of miles in using the technique. There seems to be some merit to it.

Unfortunately for me, I was in one of these frames of mind when I got Carlos’s mass email. I hate the concept. I despise the very premise – not for any reason, just because it’s not the sort of thing that I’d naturally want to do. Last week was week one. Tonight is week two.

Ten minutes into class, I casually informed Carlos of how I hated him. Ten more minutes later, unable to reproduce the most basic Waltz combination when practicing en masse, I got a “hey, you over there, come stand behind this guy and watch him” from the less than nuturing instructor (who I, nonetheless, like. Don’t take no crap lady, I’m with you). I was quite literally the worst person in the class. As I stewed in the back row, I started scanning the room for possible exits. I am a master of the discrete exit, but it was a big open room, with 32 people in an aligned array, AND my stuff was on the opposite side of the room as the door. There was no way. I was stuck.

Unsurprisingly, when we got into the rotational group dance, I was one of the two guys who wasn’t picked by any of the girls/women (who ranged from college aged to 70, for whatever it’s worth). The teacher, finding herself funny I’m sure, moved one of them over to me anyway. I was forced to do another thing that I don’t like doing under standard circumstances as a steady stream of women pinwheeled about the room…be charming. And charming I was. After an hour’s worth of “wow, that wasn’t so bad” (OK, maybe only 4 of them, but I got a few surprised nods too), I was back on stable ground. I didn’t hate Carlos anymore by the end, but he still feels bad; I’ll find some way to weaponize that emotion against him, because he’s Carlos and I might be able to get some salsa out of it.

Meanwhile, I refuse to suck at anything. If at all possible, I’d like to even be good at everything I do. So from now until the middle of November, I will be caring about how well I dance. For the next round of weddings, whenever those will be, you better believe I’m not dancing still, unless you want to Waltz or Rhumba. And even then I’m not doing it. So don’t get your hopes up.

I practiced for about 45 cumulative minutes and have the movements down to rote now. But my big toe hurts. And I pinched something in my left elbow (that’s the hand hand) elbow last night while lifting. But I will perservere. Without anything else to compete at, I’ve resorted to ballroom dancing. How sad is that.

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