Dancing with Grandpa: Mid-Singles on a Saturday Night

What did I do to deserve this?

After a really lovely Saturday afternoon my dear friend Mesh and I decided to spend our evening at a mid-singles dance. Why? We aren't sure. Maybe we thought it would be funny? Motives aside it was an awesome evening of horrible music, awkward flirting, and soft skinned men.

9:15
We enter the dance floor. This is the scene we are met with:

P.S. The song playing when this picture was taken was "I Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore" incidentally, I'm pretty sure fighting feelings was all people were doing this evening.

9:20 A very peppy girl runs up to greet us, clearly the theme of the dance is Hawaiian, as noted by the tiki dudes taped to the doors. She offers us a lai, and laughs hysterically. IT WAS FUNNY WHEN WE WERE 12. Perpetual adolescence ladies and gentlemen, this is what it looks like. We decline her offer. She seems shocked.

10:00 Mesh and I stand in the back corner by a fan that is blowing our hair like supermodels, close to the snack table. The snacks are cheese, meat and crackers. Because who doesn't want to eat stinky cheese and meat sticks before dancing with someone? People are clearly planning on not getting action tonight.

10:05 Friend Blake shows up, he is responsible for the facebook invite to this insane event. He is curious as to why we aren't dancing. We look at the dance floor with it's 3 people and make a blank face at him.

10:06 Mesh and I decide to embrace the awesomeness of the evening.

10:08 A girl sneaks up behind us to ask why "two pretty girls aren't dancing" we laugh nervously and quickly nickname her "frizzy braid" she is asked to dance and as she is walking away she grabs Mesh's butt and declares, "you're next!" We promptly re-name her "creepy ass-grabber."

10:09-10:30 Mesh and I happily give all the people in the room awesome nicknames, ranging from "backpack dude" who was clearly gay and wearing a jansport, to "short girl" who was clearly not aware of what makes you a "mid" single and also knew how to line dance like a total bad-a. We watch them dance awkwardly. One guy looks totally stoned, another is dancing like a duck. A woman in a leopard print shirt is clearly well versed in the song "party in the u.s.a."and has her hands in the air far too often.

10:30 We decide to get our groove on, because nothing we could do would be worse that what we were seeing. "We have nothing to lose." Blake asks me to dance, and upon "returning" me to the awesome fan corner asks Mesh to dance. Boom, dancing accomplished. Also, at some point someone threw a beach ball out in the mix. Memo people: you need more than 10 people to keep the beach ball in the air without making a concerted effort. Luckily for us, stoned dancer dude made sure that ball stayed off the ground.

11:00 Clearly we were wrong, we had our dignity to lose.

11:05 We spy a soft couch to lounge on, and I head over with Mesh behind me, I asses the seating arrangement and a strange dude is lurking on the right side of the area. I sit on the left side. Mesh sits down next to me, looks at the dude, turns to me and calmly states "you are an amazing friend." Clearly we are in survival mode. If you don't want to sit next to the creepy guy you have to speed walk ahead of me, or take me down from behind. We sat and played a game where we have to decide who we would kiss if everyone died but the people in the room. There was a lot of silence. Mesh comments that a dude in Hawaiian shirt was trolling the couch.

11:10 Hawaiian shirt dude makes his move. Asks me to dance. Thus begins the most painful 3.5 minutes of the evening. He escorts me to the floor and starts to dance, staring and me and not speaking. He is clearly older and missing several important teeth. Here is how this dance went:

Me: "soooo what's your name?"
HSD: "David" *Stare*
Me: Long pause "Sooo what do you do?"
HSD: "Oh I'm unemployed"
Me: "Uhhh ok, what did you used to do?"
HSD: "I taught stuff"
Me: "Ok, I'm a teacher too"
HSD: "Cool" *CONTINUES TO STARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING*
Song ends and I say thanks and it was nice meeting him, he asks if I'd like to dance again, I politely decline.
I just want to say that dancing with a 65 year old, unemployed man, with horrible breath was a low point in the evening, and my friend was texting another friend about it. I assume she said something snarky like I'd found my eternal companion. I'm watching her text as I'm dancing and shooting death rays through my eyes. She was too gleeful, she didn't notice. Also, all I was thinking when we were dancing was that he smelled like my grandpa, who regularly doesn't shower for days and that his hands were really soft, but not in a good way, like in a "you're so old you've lost the elastin and now your skin is all mushy" kind of way. I ponder how someone can smile and say they are unemployed at the same time. Mesh informs me that old men think being unemployed is a plus, since they'd have more time to spend with you. I don't question how she has gathered this intel on old men dating habits.

11:15 I curl up in a ball on the couch and cry softly while Mesh continues to text people about my new boyfriend.

11:20 We position Mesh so I can take a picture of Hawaiian Shirt Dude without being to obvious, and in case you thought I was kidding, here he is:

You're welcome blogging world. 

                   
11:25 Last call for dancing, they say a prayer then play a Boyz 2 Men song. Mesh and I sneak away from Hawaiian Shirt Dude who is still lurking nearby. We make a run for it, stopping only briefly to get a business card from the DJ since I'm in charge of homecoming and while the music was lame, he did play "Give me Everything" by Pitbull when we requested it. I asked him if he could play for inner-city kids and he said that he would rock my world. I told him that I had been promised that a lot and was always left disappointed. He seemed unfazed by this.  Pretty sure he thought I was hitting on him. I'm not entirely sure I wasn't. My standard for dating had been compromised at this point. You have a job? Your hands don't feel like gak? You win!

The overall feeling as we drove off into the night was one of gratitude. Our lives are awesome, we don't own any leopard print shirts, we have cute boys to date, and we brush our teeth on a regular basis.