The coolest thing about getting older is dancing

I think my dance style is just seeing how many shapes I can make with my body. This dawned on me around 1 a.m. at a Romare show recently, the second evening in a row I spent dancing. The night prior, Dave and I — the envy of the neighborhood and bane of the guy downstairs — had a dance party in the living room. Both nights, I debuted brilliant new choreography.

Most of what you’ll read about dancing falls into two camps these days: The scientific analysis and social analysis. The former includes research about how dancing to music with others lowers symptoms of depression. The latter includes reports that are… mostly grim.

We are, per usual, blaming much of the bad news about dancing on social media and surveillance culture. An Instagram post from Tyler, the Creator went viral last year, in which he wrote, “I asked some friends why they don’t dance in public and some said because of the fear of being filmed. … It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme, all for having a good time.”

Tyler banned phones and cameras from his listening parties, saying “Don’t come if you aren’t going to dance.” Entire venues have taken the same approach, with positive feedback — but it’s not a sea change. Ticket prices are also being blamed, as reports of how the sheer cost of electric music shows has taken a toll on dance culture: “larger stages, higher production values and headline-driven lineups” increase prices for attendees, who then insist on recording the spectacle vs. experiencing it — but this almost feels like more of an argument for how rich kids are no fun.

The criticism isn’t just from a bunch of older people; the young people seem to be pretty bummed about dance culture, too: I found commentaries written by college students lamenting their generation’s lackluster parties, or arguing that online dance has killed community. Who would have guessed that the children would yearn for disco.

Conveniently — blessedly — I am unencumbered by a young person’s reality: I am too old to be quite so self-conscious, and I was not raised in the ABD (Always Be Documenting) internet era. It also helps that I’m crashing straight toward the bottom of the U-shaped happiness-age curve, which suggests your least happy years are in your 40s. So, I’m kind of banking on that earlier study that showed how good dancing is for the old Blues Mobile (that’s that I plan to call perimenopause). I am at the exact right age to really enjoy dancing.

In December, one of Dave’s Advent calendar gifts was a dance performance — not meant to be sexy, but definitely intended to be absurd. Before that day arrived, I made the inspired choice to visit a dance supply shop and buy a black leotard. Beloved readers: This might have been one of the best things I have ever purchased in my life, and I once bought a set of blue glass seashell plates.

I have now worn that leotard three times, twice at home and once last weekend at a lake house getaway with friends, where everyone was encouraged to put on some sort of body suit/leotard/onesie Saturday night. Being in a group and dressed explicitly to dance got people moving. There may have been brief moments of self-consciousness, but they seemed to mostly give way to playfulness. Or I was too busy twirling to notice otherwise.

(To tell you the truth, I was shocked when people started tiring out and sitting down long before I felt ready to quit. How can you relax when there are SO MANY new moves to design, ones that might involve aggressive shoulder gyrating and slow, cat-like steps??)

One of Dave’s “INS” for 2026 was more dance parties, and we are really doing a great job so far — at least, better than my goal of eating more sun-dried tomatoes. Photos and videos do exist of my dancing — scary! — but I just get a kick out of them. In fact, a video from last weekend was shared with other friends, and someone commented that we reminded her of the author Miranda July. I checked out July’s Instagram and was thrilled to find so many goofy-ass dancing reels. She gets it.

What I noticed in July’s moves, and in watching others dance as we get older, is that we reach the zone of indifference. How we’re perceived matters little — turn us into a meme, for all we care! — but the fun matters a lot. Maybe we’ll even shimmy through the bottom of the U-curve.

In saying all of this, of course, I’m probably tempting fate: I’ll either go viral on TikTok for being embarrassing or I’ll break a hip on the dance floor.