Dancing

Why do we all think we can dance so amazingly if really none of us have any idea how, and why don't I care if I can?
I had two different experiences last night at our Sadie Hawkins Dance that brought this to my attention.
First of all, Mr. Rich was there with a lady, and it looked to me like he was trying very hard to impress this girl. Some of the stuff he was doing was completely cracking me up! I don't know why it was so funny, but I think I laughed so hard I was crying. (Oh, and then we got some pictures of it for the yearbook. =D) But the thing that I noticed most was he didn't (usually) care that we were laughing at him, because he was being what I assume to be "himself", and having a great time!
The second thing that happened was actually quite unexpected on my part. Me and Nic were hanging out with one of our friends and her date. I had never met her date before, but he seemed a little reluctant to dance because he said that he didn't know how. I changed that quickly. Okay, if you know me at all, you know that I'm the LAST person in the world to know how to dance to all these songs they play at our school dances. (Except for the slow ones of course. ) Me and my friends have come up with quite a few "dances" that are funny enough to make up for our lack of dancing skills. Among them are the all famous "shopping cart" the "lawn mower", "Putting on socks," and my personal favorite, "shooting the basketball." I was doing all these funny things and really amusing myself and a lot of the people around me. My friend's date thought I was the funniest thing he had ever seen, and so he introduced himself to me because he said he liked how I was doing all these things, having fun and being myself, and not worrying one iota about what other people thought of me. We were both lacking in dancing skills, so we spent the rest of the night doing these crazy things, and trying to come up with new things that could make us look like we knew what we were doing. ("The pool table" and "swimming goldfish" were among our favorites.) It was a blast!
I see this picture in my head (and I'm sure everybody does) of the "ideal" way to dance. When we attempt to dance, it's really convenient to just assume that you are such an amazing dancer and that you look exactly like your ideal image. If you assume this you will never have the problem with being too self conscious about your dancing and sitting on the side watching the whole time. I do a little bit of this, but time and time of dancing in front of the mirror ("practicing" before a dance) has proven to me that I have absolutely zero dancing skills according to our paradigm of a good dancer. The other method to my insanity is that as long as I am having fun, why should I care what people think of my dancing skills? I shouldn't! So, I don't! If you look around at a dance, you might be surprised at how many people are just like you and have no clue how to dance. If you are still doubting, take a closer look at all the people you think do know how to dance. More often then not, they don't really know how to dance either, but they are having so much fun being their crazy selves, that they look like the "ideal dancer"!
Maybe the "ideal dancer" in our minds shouldn't be somebody that knows how to move perfectly, but the person that knows how to have fun, just be themselves, and not even think about what other people may think of them! That's what I do, and I LOVE going to dances! I had an AWESOME time last night, (and I think I burned off like a thousand calories!)