Barely 17, fueled by the sugary buzz of house party alcopops, I stumbled into my truth for the first time. The words, “I’m gay,” felt clumsy as they left my mouth at the bus stop, hanging in the air between me and my friend Dan. Looking down at the imagined spot where they landed, then back at Dan, a wave of certainty washed over me. It was true. I lurched back into the party’s haze of nu-rave music and cigarette smoke, blurting out my revelation to each friend in turn. Later, under the cover of a living room blanket amidst oblivious partygoers, I solidified this new reality with a clumsy make-out session with my friend Scott – a fittingly chaotic start to a decade of queer exploration.
Coming out stories are almost a rite of passage for my friends. This speaks to two truths: most of my friends are queer, and each of them carries a unique narrative woven around the experience of coming out. Some came out in the schoolyard, others waited until their late twenties. Some declarations were loud and explosive, others whispered so quietly they barely registered. Coming outs have happened in tents, in church pews, at dinner tables, even, inadvisably, at funerals. They’ve been delivered in heartfelt letters, mumbled through awkward conversations with parents, or sometimes, not at all. Yet, through the tapestry of these diverse experiences, a single, unifying thread emerges: isolation.
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The journey of exploring and embracing queerness can be profoundly lonely. In fact, queerness itself, in its nascent stages, can feel like an isolating experience. As young queer individuals, we often come out into a world that offers a spectrum of reactions, and then spend years navigating the ongoing process of coming out – repeatedly defining ourselves in spaces not inherently built for us. Especially in our youth, our queerness is often relegated to hushed, stolen moments, a seed discovered in secret, needing time and space to sprout in the hidden corners of our minds.
Two years after my own clumsy coming out, Robyn released Body Talk pt. 1, featuring the now-iconic lead single, “Dancing On My Own.” The album, at its core, is an exploration of loneliness and isolation. In a 2010 interview with Pitchfork, Robyn herself stated, “The whole album is about being lonely, but I think it’s interesting to put that idea into a club where a lot of people are crammed into a small room.” Reflecting on “Dancing On My Own,” she added, “I’ve been touring a lot in the last three years, and spent a lot of time in clubs just watching people, and it became impossible to not use that lyric ‘dancing on my own’, because it’s such a beautiful picture.”
The first time I heard the song is etched in my memory. By then, I had navigated several cities, my youthful explorations continuing with the same hurried, often messy encounters. My technique might have improved, but the underlying yearning remained. Like many young queer men, I channeled my perceived charm and youthful looks into a series of fleeting sexual encounters, grasping for a connection I couldn’t quite articulate or attain. I was adrift in a sea of unrequited affection for a close friend, clinging to the remnants of a life I felt I should be pursuing.
In the sweltering summer of 2010, my small east Bristol apartment became an oven as friends and acquaintances gathered for a post-Glastonbury party. Sometime around midnight, the music slipped from my control, careening wildly from Candi Staton to The Horrors before landing on a track I’d never encountered.
It began with a tremor, a pulsating synth beat that mirrored a racing heart, driving the four minutes and 49 seconds of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” before dissolving into an ethereal silence. Glancing from my kitchen, I saw him across the room, standing close with someone else. The anxious pulse of the song’s synth mirrored my own heartbeat. The lyrics, raw with longing and sadness, framed my own unspoken emotions. The same ache resonating in the spaces between the bassline echoed within the cramped confines of my apartment.
American professor David Halperin’s book, How to Be Gay, despite its seemingly instructional title, isn’t a beginner’s guide to homosexuality. Instead, it delves into the unique position of queerness within marginalized communities, particularly concerning the acquisition of history, culture, and identity. Unlike many identities, queer people largely don’t grow up in queer families. Exposure to queer individuals, let alone realistic and nuanced queer role models in mainstream media, is often scarce.
Instead, we find our education in the dimly lit spaces of bars and clubs, in hushed darkrooms and private bedrooms. We learn from those we love, even when that love isn’t reciprocated in the way we desire. We learn from shared trauma, from collective loneliness. From these fragments, we piece together a culture, weaving in music, art, and poetry into the queer lexicon. Queerness manifests in public spaces, in private moments, in digital realms, but it truly flourishes in clubs. Within these havens, we paint our queerness onto each other, onto the walls, into the very atmosphere. Through a shared canon of anthems, “Dancing On My Own” chief among them, we envelop ourselves in the thick, heady air of queer community, finding temporary solace and belonging. From the moment of its release, “Dancing On My Own” was adopted into the musical vernacular of a generation of queer individuals.
Robyn performing at Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, August 2018. Her blonde hair is short, and she is wearing a black blazer and black pants, holding a microphone and singing passionately.
Image via Wikimedia
In 2013, a club night named Dancing On My Own (DOMO) emerged. After several iterations, it found its home in London’s Resistance Gallery and rapidly gained a devoted following. Five years after my initial coming out, three after first hearing the song in that cramped apartment, “Dancing On My Own” remained a constant presence. It echoed through the highs and lows of my life, and now, it resurfaced in a new form – a physical space dedicated to its spirit.
DOMO wasn’t just another queer venue. Tucked away behind an unassuming door on a London backstreet, the Resistance Gallery possessed the hallmarks of a typical East London spot: a small bar, a DJ booth, a stage adorned with cheap glitter curtains, and a smoking area enclosed by barbed wire and walls embedded with broken glass. Yet, once a month, this space transformed into a queer utopia.
Seeking to understand the magic of DOMO, I reached out for photos and stories. Repeatedly, people responded with gratitude for the memory, but lamented the lack of photographic evidence. This was partly due to the club’s atmosphere; as the night progressed, the temperature would soar, leading to a partial shedding of clothes and a general discouragement of indiscriminate photography. My friend Izzy described it as having “more boobs than Playboy, except not in an oppressive problematic way.”
The sweltering, writhing mass of bodies was undeniably part of the experience, but it wasn’t the core of DOMO’s appeal. The true essence lay in Izzy’s follow-up message: “I only went once and I spent all night kissing Lauren (my straight pal), it was my first kiss after my shitty, abusive ex-girlfriend and my sparkly Converse stuck to the floor and I’ve never felt more alive.”
It wasn’t just the kisses or the sticky floors, but the in-between space DOMO created. It was a haven for shared experiences, for collective traumas to converge and be held as we danced, ostensibly alone, but together. This club night illuminated the profound importance of “Dancing On My Own” to the contemporary queer experience.
At every DOMO event, “Dancing On My Own” was always the final song. Even now, I vividly recall the moment the lights would rise, mirroring the song’s lyrics. I remember the joy on faces around me, voices raised in unison, friends embracing, sharing one last sweaty kiss as the song’s frantic heartbeat faded into silence.
But I also remember glimpses of sadness in people’s eyes as they dispersed into the night. Queerness can be bittersweet. It can be lonely, even bleak. But it’s also beautiful, exhilarating, and breathtaking. “Dancing On My Own” encapsulates this duality. When we, as queer individuals, dance to it, wherever we are, we are dancing on our own, but as a collective, united in that fleeting moment against the world.
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