Yesterday’s wedding reception for Joe and Laura featured a DJ, a disco ball, and a spacious dance floor. As a result, we were exposed to one of the worst recent wedding reception developments: the Impenetrable Female Dancing Circle.
If you’ve been to a wedding in the last five years, you’ve probably seen an IFDC. It forms when high-spirited young women forsake the need for a partner and rush the dance floor, forming a circle. They bounce up and down and clap and do some secret dance unknown to anyone over age 30 while one circle member after another moves into the center to cut a rug. The participation in the circle is 99% female; rare, indeed, is the Y-chromosomed human who has the confidence in his dancing ability to break into the circle. And so the IFDC goes on and on, unbroken, a living thing, throbbing and shrieking as each new favorite song comes on.
So, what’s the problem? Why should even a cranky and grizzled veteran of countless weddings care if young women want to band together, empower themselves, and proudly display their dancing chops?
The problem is this: if you are a crappy dancer — and let’s face it, that description applies to the spastic dancing attempts of the vast majority of American males — you don’t want to try to break into an IFDC or, even worse, dance with your partner on the empty side of the floor, where your fitful and pathetic moves will be exposed for all chuckling wedding guests to see. The great thing about a crowded dance floor is that it is crowded. You and your partner can move into the center of the floor and meld into the mass of pulsing humanity so that your lame attempts to get down aren’t the subject of mass derision.
If you’re feeling in a celebratory mood at a wedding reception, therefore, the IFDC might just prevent you from fully expressing your joy with your patented shimmy and shake. So c’mon, ladies — after you’ve formed that IFDC for a dance or two, break up, fill the floor, and let the rest of us find the dancing anonymity that we so desperately need!