Hey, stranger.

In high school I was friends with a boy named Zane who was beautiful and chic and could have been a poster boy for American Apparel. He starting throwing Girls and Gays parties the summer before my senior year and we’d all arrive to his house mid afternoon, swim in the pool, lounge around the turquoise rim until night fell. Then slowly we’d get up and Zane would switch the playlist and it was time to dance. In my memory, Zane had miniature disco balls and strobe lights but I think it was just the pool lights reflecting off our sequined tops.

Despite poppers being done in the corner and the countertops sticky from spilt vodka, those parties felt innocent. My friends and I, dancing to SOPHIE and Charli XCX and Marina & The Diamonds and Azealia Banks, holding each other’s hands, spinning in circles. I attribute most of my love for going out to that summer and all of my self confidence on those friends. We would whisper secret confessionals in the bathroom, some of us questioning our sexuality or struggling with new relationships or terrified of the looming shadow of adulthood. I remember dancing opposite to Cole and Schuyler, singing every word to Scheiße in perfect German, our words slightly out of breath.

My memory is nothing to write home about but I can recall in perfect clarity the places I’ve gone dancing in. The thing about being in a room, two feet on the floor, people bumping into you unceremoniously, is that it captures the feeling of flying down a hill on your bike without the fear of going ass over teacup. Or whatever the saying is. I like going fast on my bike but I’d like it a lot more if I wasn’t terrified of falling. I like skiing fast and driving fast and running fast but they all seem to have a terrible other shoe that can drop at any moment: physical harm. But dancing, especially when the chorus hits on a song that everyone knows and you grasp your friend’s hands in yours and can do nothing but jump up and down with everyone else, dancing has no other shoe threatening to drop. It’s a perfect pirouette, no notes.

The people I like going out with the most are people who dance like me: silly and unrestrained and all for fun. Annala and Olivia imitate the classic Fraternity Boy moves. Rachel and I do bits. Ian wears sunglasses and will do the worm if prompted. Michael emulates what I’d imagine they used to do in the 70’s. Schuyler grinds on her friends and always looks like she’s actually at a club in Berlin, not Seattle. Cole dances with all hips. I love it.

Because I am not immune to the insecurities that plague (probably) everyone, I will not pretend that it is always easy for me to dance in front of people. Especially in broad daylight, especially when the crowd isn’t large enough to grant obscurity. In fact, I can conjure up the skin crawling sensation of being on a slightly too empty dance floor, stone cold sober, right now if I wanted to. I don’t. In my mind, being able to let yourself move to the music is a physical manifestation of your ability to be unabashedly yourself. A notoriously difficult thing to do. So I say this with love in my heart and little to no judgement: we have to stop trying to impress each other on the dance floor.

When I first went out, maybe 19 or 20, dancing in frat houses and run down college apartments, I thought the whole point was to look as sexy as possible. I thought the joy that I had once felt in Zane’s house was reserved for special instances when I was surrounded by beloved friends. Not here, the basement of Alpha Sig. I could still have fun and sing along to the songs I knew with my friends but the underlying assumption was that we were being perceived by boys or other girls or anyone who cared to look. It followed, then, that what I felt beneath my happiness to be surrounded by people was a stark awareness of myself. If no one came up to me or, later on, if no one bought me a drink, had I failed? The breath-catching moment of oh, so this is what it’s all about in Zane’s house slowly fell away to a cynical, almost bitter, feeling that Zane’s was an isolated moment. That in the real world, boys leered and people’s hot breath was often in your face and sometimes they’d remix Mamma Mia into an abomination.

Occasionally I’d go out with people who were participating in the Hot Olympics and spent the night swaying to music with one eye open to see who was looking back. Occasionally that was me. And you know what? Sometimes it is fun to feel sexy and mysterious for yourself or your friends or if there’s someone in the crowd you find interesting. I am not suggesting that I don’t subscribe to that. It’s often the opposite. But when you’re doing it for someone to look, to make yourself feel valuable, to ensure that any photo or video taken captures a version of yourself that is desirable, that’s what I want us to shed. For the women reading this who have been taught, at every turn, to be a man watching a woman watching herself*, I’m right there with you. But I encourage you to do whatever you need so that you can experience the wonderful, exhilarating feeling of dancing for yourself. Of being sweaty and out of breath and losing yourself so completely in the alive-ness of the moment.

But maybe that’s not you. Maybe you’re a man or don’t identify as a woman and still, this applies! I want to see people being silly in the club! I want to see people dancing with abandon! I want to see friends making each other laugh and new couples slow dancing even when no one else is and parents showing their children the way they used to dance when they were young. No more trying to impress each other, please. The man you meet at a bar for 15 minutes is probably not worth sacrificing your enjoyment of the night for. Unless that’s the goal.

Over time I accumulated friends who would have been at Zane’s— friends who laughed with me and screamed when their favorite songs came on and played a game called Who Can We Convince That My Name Is Cigarette?

(rules: adopt ridiculously bad French accent. If someone at the bar asks for your name, tell him Cigarette. Bonus points if they believe you but you only win if you can keep a straight face.)

Once I did find those people, my cynicism receded a bit. I began to find that a foundation of knowing what it was like to dance with people you loved and to do it wildly was not so easily shaken. That I could dance with people who wanted to be seen but that didn’t mean I had to. It was my love for going fast, for the thrill of a dark room and a bass you heard in your chest, that mattered. And it helped, of course, to be next to people who loved the thrill themselves.

I often find myself writing about my endless curiosity on the inner workings of people— the ways in which we’re similar, the secret idiosyncrasies we hide from each other, the flaws that aren’t quite flaws— and I suppose this is an extension of that. I want, more than anything, for people to be comfortable as themselves around each other. Especially around me. I think if I achieve anything in life, I’d like to be the type of person that people feel like they can be uncoordinated and uncool in front of. I want to feel the glitter of Zane’s parties on nights surrounded by strangers. So I urge you to challenge yourself to dance next time you’re out with the goal of making yourself laugh. Or having as much fun as possible. I urge you to do it sober or do it drunk or high or whatever gets you there. Then tell me all about it. Tell me what songs instantly get you out of your seat and if you’d rather dance at a concert or at a club. Whatever your answers are, I’m cheering you on.

xoxo,

Evie

*“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” -Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride.