You'll never meet someone like that

I do not want to dance. Not just, I don’t like to dance. The compulsion, the desire, the impetus: it does not exist for me. What can I say other than yes, I would make up stupid dance routines in my room like any other kid; and that discos where my all-girls school would partner with a neighbouring boys school are totally blocked from my memory. There is photographic evidence of me making moves to Tinie Tempah, Journey and Katy Perry at university, and even more recent videos of me scream-singing nostalgic pop and R&B songs at friends’ weddings. But I still do not want to dance.

Years ago in the tropical heat of Panama, my yoga teachers told our group that the finale of our training programme would be a cacao ceremony where we would be invited to release our inhibitions and dance nonstop for an hour. I can’t remember if I’m making up that there were blindfolds involved but every inch of my body protested. I resisted movement, stubborn in my conviction that I did not enjoy dancing. I think I half-heartedly moved my body in a dynamic way for three minutes and spent the rest of the time sitting in a hammock, mortified.

It doesn’t take a therapist to discern that I have serious control issues. My type A personality and a near decade-long eating disorder is proof enough. The fact that I preferred ballet to contemporary, making plans to spontaneity, and staying in to going out speaks volumes. The anomaly come in the form of cooking, where I feel allergic to recipes, their limitations and parameters and specificity too suffocating. As if following one would be the enemy of creativity and individualism.

Someone once asked if I ever just turn up the music and dance alone at home, where no one is watching or judging me; where I could just be free to ‘feel’ the music. “No,” I replied, “That has literally never crossed my mind as an adult.” And suddenly all my worst fears about myself start feeling like they’re becoming true. Not fun. Not cool. Not sexy. Not free. Just a wound up little bomb waiting to go off.

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Amelia convinced me to go out last night. I told her I didn’t like dancing and she said we didn’t have to dance (but that we might have to dance next Saturday) and I told her I sometimes don’t know what to do with my body when I’m out, like it’s too much of a conscious decision rather than muscle memory. I voice noted Meg and asked if I was a psychopath for not wanting to dance and she assured me that this does not specifically signal psychopathic personality traits and that I’m fun regardless, although that little demon deep inside suspects this is not true.

I read somewhere (I watched a TikTok) that using ‘boundaries’ as an excuse for not leaving your house is a symptom of a sinister social problem amongst young people, exacerbated by social media, therapy-speak and post-pandemic reflexes. I read about the loneliness epidemic, the fall in birth rates, the misery of modern dating and I know I’ll never meet someone sitting at home but the lick of flames in front of me is too mesmerising. I also know that my inability to form sentences on a page lately is also because there’s only so much you want to write about when you’re not out experiencing the world and I’m beginning to run out of good stories to rewrite.

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I once told my therapist I was very self-aware (classic type A Taurus), but what I meant by that is I’m extremely self-conscious. Every minute movement, every fleeting thought, every look in my direction creates a projection of who I am at any given time. It’s impossible to exist without feeling like I will be perceived, as what I don’t know – a fake? A bore? A terrible person?

I do not want to dance but I do want to cook, so the pan’s temperature rises and in goes one anchovy fillet, two crushed garlic cloves, dried chilli flakes, thickly cut spring onion and half a bag of spinach. Two pats of butter, two eggs gently broken, all layered upon two pieces of just-done toast. Half way through, Amelia tells me it’s not too late to come surfing and I think about the fire to my right, and the essay that isn’t going to write itself (it never does), and then I think about the blue skies forming and the sun trying to break through the clouds and the way that song will sound in the car. I arrive at the beach ill-equipped and alone, battle my way through white water and sit on my board. Self-consciously. I watch everyone else around me and deliberate a few times on whether to take a wave. The decision is made for me and I’m catapulted down the face of what feels like four feet but may very well have been half that size, the spray a waterfall. I’m tumbling under water, swimming up to the surface (or what I think is the surface but really it’s my board), and for a split second dramatically wonder if I’ll run out of breath. I emerge and hope no one saw.

It was quite enough for one day and even though I had been brutally overthrown by mother nature, I knew it was good to get out because twenty minutes later I was sat with a coffee next to two friends and Alfie the deerhound, talking about the week ahead and various celebrations and a sun-soaked trip away.

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I have a distinct feeling that I keep chasing time and I’m tricking myself into believe that I can catch up and pause it for a little while. Just to gather my thoughts. To give myself a moment to become the writer I want to be, to become the partner I want to be, to become the mother I want to be, to become the person I’m not yet. Perhaps that’s what I’m trying to do when I’m opting out of the outside world; desperately trying to rewind time like it’s a Netflix show I can control: pausing, rewinding and rewatching the good bits, fast forwarding the bad, creating and recreating the fantasy of its ending, even though it keeps on going and going and going.

I still can’t work out if I’m a sociopath for not wanting to dance (seeing as I’ve ruled out psychopath). But then Maggie Rogers comes on and I start singing and I feel my head bobbing, my eyes closing and my hands wanting to remove themselves from the keyboard. Perhaps it’s just about widening the definition of dancing and removing it from the context of perception and moving it into the concept of embodied happiness.