Hear me out.
I love dancing. There, I've said it. When I went to nightclubs and house parties in my teens and twenties I was itching to dance. I lost count of the number of times I stood cursing at a bar waiting to get served whilst the DJ spun one of my favourite tunes. Or how irritated I felt when the lights came up on the dance floor.
Gradually, without noticing, dancing slipped off my radar. Nights out bopping in a club or pogoing at a house party became nights foot-tapping in a bar, chatting in a pub, or putting the world to rights over wine in a friend's dining room. A natural progression, but a dancing regression.
I missed dancing. I dabbled in lessons in my late twenties and early thirties; salsa, which confused me with its three-beat rhythm, and swing, which was fun but didn't inspire me or my girlfriend (at the time) to return the following week.
Nowadays the only dancing I do is at weddings, sending up The Inbetweeners Movie whilst trying not to step on small children. Often, by the time I'm sufficiently inebriated to venture onto the vast floodlit dance floor, I'm jostled into a circle around the newlyweds and kicked in the legs.
I wish I danced more. I wish I danced to modern music. I wish I danced like dancers in the music videos I watch on TV every morning (depressing news can wait until lunchtime). So that's what I'm going to do. This month I will learn to street dance.
Some of my friends will probably give me a ribbing. Dancing is not a traditionally masculine activity in our society, is it? But films and TV shows have tried to correct that: Billy Elliot made ballet acceptable for boys, Strictly Come Dancing has seen cricket and rugby players foxtrot in sequins, and street dance group Diversity won Britain's Got Talent.
So tonight I searched online for a street dance class. I found one in Brighton. I'm going to contact the instructor and ask if I can join.
By the end of October I will learn to street dance. Beginner standard, obviously. Thirty-something white guy standard, definitely.
If I can face the humiliation, I might even show you some moves.
What is your wish of the month for October? I'd love to cheer you on.
