It was a rare night out for me. Usually, my social life revolves around tabletop games and the company of my polycule, but last weekend we decided to hit a club for a change of pace. The first hour was pretty standard club fare, nothing remarkable. I was just nodding my head to the music near the bar when Walk the Moon’s inescapable hit, “Shut Up and Dance,” started playing. It’s one of those songs that sounds like stadium rock, but without any of the gravitas – pure, unadulterated, catchy pop-rock.
As the chorus kicked in, a woman in a striking orange dress approached, and with perfect timing, whispered right in my ear, “Shut up and dance with me.”
What she couldn’t have known was that her simple invitation triggered a cascade of dance-related trauma dating back to my early thirties.
Flashback to 2011: I had just turned 31, and LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” was the undisputed king of the airwaves – a relentless, synth-heavy earworm that dominated every party. My own dance skills were, shall we say, rudimentary, limited to awkward Peanuts-character-esque shuffles. But watching the impressive dance moves online and on shows like Ellen, I felt a genuine desire to learn.
So, I started practicing in my living room, filming my attempts and uploading them to YouTube, hoping for some online encouragement. It quickly became clear that online validation wasn’t going to magically transform me into a dancer. Recognizing my limitations, I decided to hire a dance teacher named Linda.
Linda’s teaching style was… intense. Positive reinforcement was not in her vocabulary. She had a laser focus on every flaw, every misstep. Her critiques were so harsh, they often brought me to tears – a reaction, I now realize, stemming from a childhood where my parents’ feedback was always overwhelmingly positive. Any sign of a whimper from me was met with a sharp command: “SHUT UP AND DANCE!” This, unsurprisingly, only amplified the waterworks.
Despite the emotionally bruising lessons, I felt obligated to my small YouTube audience to keep uploading videos, even these disastrous practice sessions. Shortly after my last lesson with Linda, someone compiled a video montage of all the Linda-induced crying clips.
The details are best left vague, but this compilation video somehow found its way to Pornhub and became a long-standing fixture in the “humiliation fetish” category. My professional and personal life took a hit as coworkers and family members stumbled upon it. Many people exited my life. The only ones who remained, and remain accepting, are my D&D group and polycule, likely because their own… interests… make mine seem comparatively vanilla.
And honestly, I really hope it stays that way.
