In case you didn't know it, I'm something of an expert on attending weddings. It's not because I've been married or because I'm a closet wedding planner or even because I secretly think about what it would be like to get married all the time. It's because I have attended a lot of them. I've lost the exact count, and it hurts my weak, little brain to try to recount, but I've been to somewhere between 25 and 30 weddings since college. I've been a participant in about 20% of those weddings, whether doing a reading, being the best man, or just standing dapperly in the homey line. Either way, that's a lot of weddings to go to. I suppose I could be considered a good luck charm, too, as none of the couples whose weddings I've attended have gotten divorced. [Knocks loudly on wooden desk.]
The truth is that weddings are kind of old hat at this point, but I still enjoy them quite a bit. Part of it is that I enjoy being around people so filled with promise about their new lives together. Part of it is that everyone at a wedding is just so doggone happy. It's such a nice change of pace. Part of it, though, is the dancing.
It sounds very funny, and I don't really like to toot my own horn very much, but I'm going to do it anyway. As Jeremy Grey (played by Vince Vaughn) of Wedding Crashers so aptly put it, "You and I both know I'm a phenomenal dancer." It's true. I don't mean that I'm a world class rump-shaker (although I might have done a mean Humpty Dance at one point in my life). It's the swing dancing. I'm not world class at it, either, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who does it better at any given wedding I'm attending.
One would think that the dancing really has the potential to make me look good. And one would probably be right. If it can be unleashed as a surprise, it's especially powerful. At the wedding I went to last weekend, I agreed to accompany a girl sitting next to me out onto the dance floor. The scenario that unfolded from that point onward is a fairly standard one for me. Because it’s early in the reception, most people aren’t yet drunk enough to venture out on the dance floor. So it’s me and my partner alongside maybe a couple from the bridal party and two or three elderly couples (who always still have the moves). It’s usually the second spin or the first dip that gets my partner’s attention (think of a facial expression equivalent of Susan Sarandon’s “Oh, my,” in Bull Durham), and the move after that that really draws in the spectators. Because they aren’t yet drunk enough to venture onto the floor themselves, and because my partner and I look a tad incongruous next to the sober, old folk, the guests are watching us, and they are more than a little surprised at the smoothness on display. The photographer will make his way over before long to snap some shots that no one wants in the wedding album. If there’s a video guy, he’s definitely filming us, and that will make the final cut.. Heading off the floor at the end of the song, my partner is a bit flushed and beaming in her pleasant surprise, while I try to diminish my somewhat self-satisfied grin that results both from the fact that my partner had no idea that she would enjoy the dance that much and from the fact that the people who turned to watch at my table, along with a few random others, are applauding. It’s a Good Thing.
Considering that this particular wedding was attended by more young, attractive, single women than any other one I've been to, I thought I was off to a pretty good start. Dinner hadn't even been served yet.
However, the whole dancing thing is really a double-edged sword. First, all the married women I know put themselves on the card pretty early. Plus, it's just not a wedding to me until I dance with the bride. Then, I usually dance with a few other girls. And those are just the partner-up dances. Usually someone convinces me to join them for just some random twitching around the dance floor.
I'm sure some of you are thinking that sounds like a lot of fun, and those of you with a Y-chromosome are seriously questioning my sexual orientation. Be that as it may, it can cause me troubles because I have a serious problem: I sweat like a thoroughbred. Seriously, I don't know why or how, but it doesn't take much to get me to start schvitzing. One song is usually enough to give me a bright patina of perspiration on my brow. Two songs and it's starting to flow. After that it's big trouble.
By the end of the night, I am invariably a soggy, sodden, dripping mess, and the very act that literally inspired applause at the beginning of the night leads to restrained grimaces of revulsion by the end of the reception. It’s not just my prospective partners. I think it’s gross, too.
This wedding was no different. I worked at breaking up my trips to the dance floor. I tried to sit outside and talk to people. But I didn’t know that many people there, and eventually all the people I wanted to talk to were on the dance floor anyway, leaving me no enjoyable choice but to join them.
So I find myself in the position of a wedding-ized Hamlet, holding up my drenched dress shirt and suit the next day thinking: “Alas, Wedding Abs, I know him well. To dance, or not to dance? That is the question.”
Maybe it’s sort of like drinking. I dance too much early, and by the end of the night, I’m just a puddle. I need to manage it better. Maybe I need someone to cut me off and make me switch to water for a while. I suppose if some fine young lass would drag me off to the bar to actually get me to drink more (ideally with an eye toward taking advantage of me) rather than dragging me onto the dance floor, this wouldn’t be an issue. But that’s not the way things tend to work out. Maybe I just need to wait to start the dancing about 30 minutes before the reception is over, but bring it quick and strong, like throwing down a couple of shots before last call. Maybe I just need to quit the dancing entirely and immediately. At least it couldn't drag me down if I did that.
I clearly don’t know what the best approach is. So for now I deal with both sides of the coin: built up by the schwerve, torn down by the schvitz.
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