Confessions of an Urban Single Mom … Slow Dancing

For the last couple of days, my mind has been swirling around the topic of slow dancing.

And in particular, the fact that for the life of me I can’t seem to remember who the first person was I ever slow danced with. This has been keeping me up at night.

Because… slow dancing is everything. For real.

Yes. I realise that a missile war between the United States and North Korea is imminent, that France might just get a female president and that as an adult I should be focused on sticking to my life insurance premiums, wearing power suits and contemplating inflation.

But this is me, and my personality at its best is a little wacky, and a little wonky. And I feel that every time I wake up and look around in the world and see everything that’s wrong, it is imperative for my sanity to look away and focus on what’s going right.

And slow dancing is what was right with humanity.

Gladys Knight is not alone when she said that she remembers a time when you got on a dancefloor and touched your partner, you didn’t have to look for him. I remember that time too.

It seems nobody else does, though.

Nobody slow dances any more.

When couples get on the dancefloor, the guy doesn’t pull the girl close any more. He doesn’t place her hand in his, and he doesn’t commit himself to four whole minutes of being physically so close to her that he can smell the shampoo in her hair or count the freckles on her face.

These days when couples get on the dancefloor, the guy turns the girl around (OK fine, sometimes the girls turn around by themselves!) and she shakes her booty. In his face.

Twenty-first century couple dancing is not romantic. It’s like a really fast, violent, bum-shaking, overtly-sexual, cardiovascular exercise in full view of everyone else.

I don’t get it.

I get slow dancing. I get what slow dancing means. Slow dancing is beautiful. It’s intimate. It’s romantic. It’s real. The lack of slow dancing amongst among people who love each other is what’s wrong with relationships, if you ask me. People who love each other should be forced to do absolutely nothing but… hold onto the person they love and sway from side to side for the entire duration of a slow song.

Which brings me to what’s busy happening in my world lately. I, the Urban Single Mom, have decided to force Troll 1 into slow dancing with me.

The official version is that I’m teaching him how to slow dance. The unofficial version though is… I’m forcing my 12-year-old, puberty-stricken first born son into being physically close to me. Ever since he hit puberty, his head started reaching my shoulders, his nipples started swelling and his feet became bigger than mine… he has been untouchable.

He doesn’t share the couch with me any more. He sleeps alone. And he slips his out of mine when I hold his hand for longer than a couple of seconds. But now every night in the living room, he is forced to control his puberty demons and be close to his mother for four whole minutes.

More on my perfect ‘war against puberty’ plan next week!

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