I’m livid. Hostile doesn’t begin to get at it.
It’s 30 minutes after midnight. I’m tired, I’m bored, I’m drunk, and all my friends have left.
NOW the DJ starts to play beautiful music.
I ask him why DJs do this.
Ismael seems to be a gentle, thoughtful, and positive person.
He tells me that the faster, rhythmic music is “easier” to dance to.
I say, “I think most beginner Marks are dancing too fast. They feel pushed by the music, they rush and they lose the connection.”
He agrees, and continues. To dance to dramatic, slow music he needs a revel who can move slowly, who has control. Since beginner women don’t have this, and will just fall into a series of steps, it’s easier to enjoy dancing with them when the music is fast, so that at least their falling is in the music.
So when he says what is “easier” he doesn’t mean what is easier for a beginning Mark to manage nicely, but what is easier for an advanced Mark to dance with a beginner girl. Or anyway, definitely with the “new” girl in the shortest skirt anyone has ever seen.
So I learn that my worst fears are true … The whole evening is structured around the proclivities of untrained girls. And the men who want to dance with them.
So it’s not my imagination. I have to slog through hours of music which sounds like a chorus of small dogs and ukeleles so that men can charm untrained girls.
Then what happens?
Well, what we see is that the girls “improve” by doing the same falling dance (breathe on them and they take four steps) churning out the same dull sequences no matter what is marked. They learn to do it a little bit more smoothly and sexier. But they are not learning to do a better dance.
They don’t even know what they don’t know. If the cool guys dance with them, they must be good dancers. You can see on a girl’s face when she thinks she’s great because they guy makes her feel great. This is a very short term program for the man. She has no motivation to improve. So we’re all going to be stuck with her doing that dance.
Why not raise the expectations? Dance slow, soften the embrace, so the girls can realize they don’t have control, and become interested in getting it?
Why not bestow your suave gifts on one or two girls for six months and train them so our community is getting better, instead of boringer.
It’s well known in education that high expectations are associated with improved performance in students of all levels and capacities.
