Are you dancing?

It’s one of those awkward social situations that is never addressed in etiquette books or advice columns but demands an answer. When with a female friend, how exactly should one act while dancing to Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’?

For the uninitiated, ‘Closer’ has slow, pounding beats, a bass line so dirty it should only be played after the watershed and the repeated chorus of ‘I want to fuck you like an animal’. There’s something about the primal rhythm, the slow build up and the transcendental lyrics that make it impossible to resist attempting to move spasmodically to it, or as some would call it, dance.

So while at the bar, in a club, discovering that Goth nights have not moved on in over a decade, I hear the unmistakable drum beat kick in. Quickly grabbing my beer and change, I head over to where the others are, already on the dance floor, moving to the twisted beat. Putting my pint down I join the throng and start my interpretation of movement that would no doubt cause Vitus to look away in embarrassment. Lost in a fog of alcohol and the relentless rhythm it takes some time before I realise that, while silently mouthing the chorus, due to the dynamics of the dance floor, I am now dancing with a female friend and am suddenly slapped in the face with self consciousness.

I can’t read her expression as she looks at me and it suddenly occurs to me how this may be interpreted. Does she think this is some sort of courtship, a proposition? Is that a look of shock, disgust, invitation? Or is it just complete bemusement at the bizarre jerks and tics I’m making? How on earth did we end up dancing together? Did the others drift away? Did I move? Did she? A flush of panic rushes over me, not helped by my drunken guardian angel leaning towards us and highlighting the situation in a loud, vocal manner.

Trying to concentrate on dancing, avoiding eye contact as much as possible, I attempt to act as naturally as I can while suddenly wishing that the song wasn’t quite so long. Hoping for it to finish so I can return to my pint and pretend that this never happened. All the while wondering what on earth I was doing dancing to this song with a girl and what on earth was now going through her mind.

As the song finishes I think I mutter something to her about ‘loving that song’, hastily grab my pint and down nearly half in an attempt to extinguish the heat of embarrassment.

Until agony aunts and etiquette experts can come up with a solution to how this situation should be properly addressed, I have little choice but to start a campaign to ban this filth from our dance floors.

I’m just grateful that they didn’t play any Peaches.