Two Left Feet... and Some

I used to date a lovely lady in Hong Kong. Let's call her Debbie. When I say "lovely," I just don't mean the physical aspect of it, but the overall impact a woman makes.

What did I like about Debbie? Practically everything.

What did I dislike about Debbie? Well, it wasn't really disliking anything about Debbie, but more of disliking something that she intensely loved to do.

I swear, that woman is the only one alive on earth that had managed to convince me to dance. Like most people, I have an aversion to public humiliation. That's what dancing felt like for me, anyway. (image credit: David Gothberg - released as public domain)

Yet, Debbie, with her to die-for smile and little, cute eyes that could charm the tail of the meanest German Shepherd that has been trained to attack, convinced me to dance.

Now, imagine this: a 6'1, 165 lbs. guy who has never danced in his whole life, suddenly taking a relatively small and fragile lady in his arms and twirling the night away with her. If that sounds like the precursor of a great seduction scene to you, you missed the boat, and the train, and the plane, and the bus, and the horse-drawn cart a long time ago.

Get with it! By the time that Debbie had me twirling her around with my stiffening arms and two left feet that gave a new, and much horrible definition to the meaning of the word "inept," seduction was furthest from my mind.

How to escape the ignominy of being a caveman trying hard to act like a suave and civilized lover was all I could think of.

Fortunately, she suddenly saw a dear friend she hadn't seen for a long time and gently asked leave to talk to the other woman.

Debbie said she was sorry that she had to leave me for a bit, and with as much gentlemanly consideration as I could muster (given that my calves were shaking in righteous indignation by then), I agreed and retreated back to our table at the club, where I proceeded to swill vodka like a thirsty boar.

The night passed pleasantly thereafter, with Debbie turning out to be most apologetic for having taken so long ("Oh I am sorry, David, but we had a lot of catching-up to do!") and me being truly gallantly forgiving and accepting, appearing to be the most considerate lover ever created, even in my nearly drunken state.

Needless to say, our little relationship went downhill from there. Debbie could dance like a princess with magical shoes on her tiny feet. And I, no matter what I did, remained the scourge of clubs in Hong Kong with my two left feet and perpetually frozen grimace that wanted so badly to seem like a smile.

I heard some time after we went our separate ways that Debbie had gone to work in another Asian city where she ended up marrying a dance instructor. They must be in dancing heaven.

I wished her luck, and that would have been the end of the story except that surfing for the past three days, I have seen that there seems to be an ongoing fad for faded musical stars to stage a comeback, particularly in the case of El Debarge, the 1980s star who had a tremendous hit in the song Rhythm of the Night.

Debarge performed that song in the recent BET Awards and reading all about him and his act once again, revived a paranoid fear that I thought I had annihilated for good.

Are we all going back to the days when grinding and swaying on the dancefloor was not only considered acceptable, but also (horrors!) the manly thing to do? Am I and my hatred of dancing about to be considered a weird and passe relic of the past?

Debbie, my dear Debbie, what is this tired old world coming to?

Welcome to an opinion piece by David Garcia.

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