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Y’all should know by now that I participate in fencing at college. We meet three times a week in the evenings. Most of our meetings end when the Swing Dance Club begins. One of the freshman fencers (happens to be “Ms. Burn” if you remember her from an earlier blog) is an avid dancer and has invited me since last week to at least give it a shot. “Why?” I asked her, and she replied that every other guy friend (not “boyfriend,” mind you) she’s asked and who’s accepted to try it has, apparently, instantly loved it.
I’ve refused thus far. I cannot remember a time where I was interested in trying swing dancing. It’s not due to physical exhaustion beforehand; our club is more of a casual get-together with a splash of fencing and less of an actual, hardcore fencing team workout, lol. But rather, it simply never interested me. I glance at the antics and stunts that the dancers pull off as I’m putting away our equipment, and I am genuinely disinterested. I shrug, think to myself, “It’s not for me/my thing,” and move on.
However, I’ve been reconsidering. If you’ll recall this blog, I am attempting to engage in as many activities that I can do only now while at college before I graduate and slave away (if you consider earning a nice paycheck with an exemplary company in beautiful scenery and fantastic weather year-round “slavery,” lol) at the mine. I’m afraid that this may be one such experience, that I shouldn’t miss out on this opportunity before it passes me by. “Should be an easy choice, then, Anax,” you may undoubtedly conclude. “Just go f-ing do it, bro.”
And yet, that is what stops me. I have no such desire to try swing dancing out. There are certain things that I wish to try or complete before graduating, but that is not one of them. I consider myself in the spot of one of the dancers, and the image not only puts me off, it even frightens me. (the reason it “scares” me, per se, is a long, long, complicated tale that I’ll try not to get into for this blog; maybe another time) Again, I give it some thought, but I refuse in the end.
“But Anax! You got asked by an attractive girl to go dancing with you! And you said ‘no’?! You crazy, bro?! That’s, like, a golden opportunity, man! You should’ve definitely said ‘yes’!!”
That is another issue for me. I would consider myself a gullible person, but for certain, select things, peer pressure has the opposite effect on me. When I am socially pressured to do something, especially from others that I do not trust as much as my friends and family, I am less likely to do them. Dancing, particularly with a partner, and even in an informal setting such as a club meeting, has always been one of them. I will proudly play a flute solo in front of hundreds, but I will flat-out deny any chance of dancing in the presence of a dozen.
Naturally, dancing is not the only thing that I refuse to partake in. In high school, I actively avoided romance like the plague; I still have refrained from making a Facebook account for myself; and very recently in college, I’ve had to deal with innumerable offers of alcoholic beverages (I refuse to drink). It’s difficult for me to convince others of my personal choices when there’s not really any objective logic substantiating them, and I’m relegated to being a broken record by saying, “It’s just my choice. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” over and over again. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to tell friends that I don’t care if they drink, but that I have no personal desire to try it even a little, and yet they continue to press me as if their persistence will win out in the end.
Are their arguments for suggesting that I try whatever logical? Yes. They are. “Just take a sip; you can always say ‘no’ afterwards,” or, “What if you miss this opportunity and regret it for the rest of your life?” or, “I really want you to try this because I enjoy it and I think you would enjoy it too.” Those really frustrate me. Because they are logically-based, while mine are based on my own selfish desires and choices.
And these are my close friends and family that are telling me these things, too. These are people that I trust a whole lot, and their words weigh heavily on my gullible mind. These are people who genuinely want the best for me, who do so out of no ill intent but offer their experience honestly so that it might benefit me in some way. I feel it is something I “ought” to do so that I don’t “let them down,” I guess.
On top of this, these quandaries have no “right” or “wrong” answer. There is no objective correct or incorrect choice to this; perhaps it is a “better” or “worse” scenario, but ultimately, I do not believe either choice in any of these things is moral or immoral. So that means I pretty much have to make a decision based on more than just logic, and I really hate the way that sounds, haha.
*sigh*
Question of the Blog: Have you ever run into a situation like this before? What did you do in the end? What would you recommend for me given my position?
 
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Are their arguments for suggesting that I try whatever logical? Yes. They are. “Just take a sip; you can always say ‘no’ afterwards,” or, “What if you miss this opportunity and regret it for the rest of your life?” or, “I really want you to try this because I enjoy it and I think you would enjoy it too.” Those really frustrate me. Because they are logically-based, while mine are based on my own selfish desires and choices. Are they now? The first argument doesn't work - you can't unsip once you've taken a sip. Imagine asking a vegetarian to just 'take a bite of this meat, you can always say no afterwards!' I'll get back to that in a second. The second one is also not very convincing: What if you miss this opportunity to stay sober and regret it for the rest of your life? Millions of people have done terrible things that they regret under the influence of alcohol, and life is full of opportunity - some of which might become closed off to you once you're under the influence. The third one is a bit better though, but it assumes one thing: shared values.
Their choices are based on certain values, like, say the value that they attach to the pleasure of drinking (or the lack of valuing not-drinking), and yours are too. Consider the vegetarian example again: My relatives really like the taste of meat and they don't have a value that interfers with them eating meat, so they decide to eat meat and be merry. They want me to be merry too, so why not have me eat meat as well? But if I'm a vegetarian, another value overrides whatever pleasure I might get from eating meat (unless I'm a vulgar hedonist). So the first step is to find out what values motivate or stop you from doing certain things and examine them closely (that is, if you haven't consciously adopted those values to begin with, as is the case with, say, vegetarians.)
Whether there are objective values or not is something I'm still uncertain about, so axiologically figuring out who's got the better value system is not really an option for me at the moment. However, why not adopt a skeptic position and say that yes, one of us might be right, but we can't say who by mere use of abstract argumentation? After all, values are supposed to lived out, so why not judge them experimentally by the kinds of lives that they lead to? That way both of us can go on their merry ways (saves one from pesky pseudo-arguments) and in the end the different kinds of lives will speak for themselves as to their worth and merit (in terms of well-being as well as happiness).
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I'm definitely not the person to be saying something like this, but do stupid things that have no objective answer for doing them, just to do them. YOLO it up in college, I'm being serious. There is no reason to do what you are doing right now, do something for the experience, even if you can't think of a reason for it outright, the experience will make it worth it. If the experience does not, then don't do it again. That pretty girl, the experience is worth it. In reality, the just take a sip mantra isn't a bad one at your age. Now, if something is just outright fucking stupid in your opinion, i.e. hard drugs, something that could cause you serious trauma, etc. don't do it; if something is harmless if it goes wrong and can only end harmlessly at worst, just do it. Make a facebook, tell the girl you reconsidered and would love to do that sometime else but you were busy.
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As someone with a fair amount of experience in dance (and I'm not afraid to admit it  ), I can say that the vast majority of males who dislike dancing suffer from some degree of self-consciousness, whether that be an over-concern with how they appear in the eyes of others or a lack of familiarity with rhythmic motion. In either case, simply saying "fuck it" and flopping around like an idiot is by far the best way to "break into" dancing, so to speak, and that's if you are doing it without a partner. I'll tell you what, I may be have been a really fat obnoxious kid in high school, but I said "fuck it" and ended up dancing with and getting to know quite a few girls who were WAY out of my league, both at parties and in theatre/show choir. Granted, only one of them ever touched my penis, but considering the quality of girls I had dated previous (not a pretty sight), I'd say that experience proved incredibly worthwhile.
Now, if you are looking for some sort of reasoning in regards to why one ought to dance, well that's a tougher question, though in situations like this I can't help but fall back on the very simple "why not?". If you can learn to enjoy being put in uncomfortable situations, going swing dancing included, life tends to be a lot more enjoyable.
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On February 05 2013 08:03 Sauwelios wrote:Show nested quote +Are their arguments for suggesting that I try whatever logical? Yes. They are. “Just take a sip; you can always say ‘no’ afterwards,” or, “What if you miss this opportunity and regret it for the rest of your life?” or, “I really want you to try this because I enjoy it and I think you would enjoy it too.” Those really frustrate me. Because they are logically-based, while mine are based on my own selfish desires and choices. Are they now? The first argument doesn't work - you can't unsip once you've taken a sip. Imagine asking a vegetarian to just 'take a bite of this meat, you can always say no afterwards!' I'll get back to that in a second. The second one is also not very convincing: What if you miss this opportunity to stay sober and regret it for the rest of your life? Millions of people have done terrible things that they regret under the influence of alcohol, and life is full of opportunity - some of which might become closed off to you once you're under the influence. The third one is a bit better though, but it assumes one thing: shared values. Their choices are based on certain values, like, say the value that they attach to the pleasure of drinking (or the lack of valuing not-drinking), and yours are too. Consider the vegetarian example again: My relatives really like the taste of meat and they don't have a value that interfers with them eating meat, so they decide to eat meat and be merry. They want me to be merry too, so why not have me eat meat as well? But if I'm a vegetarian, another value overrides whatever pleasure I might get from eating meat (unless I'm a vulgar hedonist). So the first step is to find out what values motivate or stop you from doing certain things and examine them closely (that is, if you haven't consciously adopted those values to begin with, as is the case with, say, vegetarians.) Whether there are objective values or not is something I'm still uncertain about, so axiologically figuring out who's got the better value system is not really an option for me at the moment. However, why not adopt a skeptic position and say that yes, one of us might be right, but we can't say who by mere use of abstract argumentation? After all, values are supposed to lived out, so why not judge them experimentally by the kinds of lives that they lead to? That way both of us can go on their merry ways (saves one from pesky pseudo-arguments) and in the end the different kinds of lives will speak for themselves as to their worth and merit (in terms of well-being as well as happiness).
"Axiologically." Huh. I've never heard of that word before. Gonna have to use it somewhere. :-D
Most of those arguments are "logical" to me because they just "make sense" in my mind. They are difficult for me to convince myself that they are wrong.
After all, values are supposed to lived out, so why not judge them experimentally by the kinds of lives that they lead to?
This makes a lot of sense to me. I value my choice to abstain from: dancing, dating, sex, alcohol, etc. Even though they seem like silly things to abstain from given another's point of view. For every ten that shake their heads at my values, there's always at least one who admires my choices; I like to think that it's worth it for their sake, like, their approval is more paramount to the others'. 
Thanks, though. This was a great post.
On February 05 2013 11:01 farvacola wrote:As someone with a fair amount of experience in dance (and I'm not afraid to admit it ), I can say that the vast majority of males who dislike dancing suffer from some degree of self-consciousness, whether that be an over-concern with how they appear in the eyes of others or a lack of familiarity with rhythmic motion. In either case, simply saying "fuck it" and flopping around like an idiot is by far the best way to "break into" dancing, so to speak, and that's if you are doing it without a partner. I'll tell you what, I may be have been a really fat obnoxious kid in high school, but I said "fuck it" and ended up dancing with and getting to know quite a few girls who were WAY out of my league, both at parties and in theatre/show choir. Granted, only one of them ever touched my penis, but considering the quality of girls I had dated previous (not a pretty sight), I'd say that experience proved incredibly worthwhile. Now, if you are looking for some sort of reasoning in regards to why one ought to dance, well that's a tougher question, though in situations like this I can't help but fall back on the very simple "why not?". If you can learn to enjoy being put in uncomfortable situations, going swing dancing included, life tends to be a lot more enjoyable.
Pretty sure it's the self-consciousness and not the rhythmic motion, lol. (I'm fully aware this is not a direct substitute, but I'm fairly decent at DDR; that's gotta count for something, surely )
You weren't aware of this before, but I'm not looking to bed a girl, or even find romance for that matter. That's not one of my goals. Dancing is a great way to exercise and socialize, but I feel I've enough substitutes for that in the forms of fencing and... well, fencing technically kills both birds with the same stone, lol. X-D But I also socialize with new folks at geological society meetings and in orchestra. I guess you could say I don't see a "need" to try out dancing because I have time-tested, viable substitutes.
Plus, the last time I (had to) dance with someone else was back in 6th grade at Cotillion. I was so frightened, I literally ran to the bathroom and cried. Eventually, I came back and did it, but I hated every second of it. Even all these years later, I'm too afraid that I haven't recovered from that.
If you can learn to enjoy being put in uncomfortable situations,...
I can't. I'm awful about this. I'll literally leave the room if an awkward sitcom or embarrassing moment in a movie is on TV. >.<'
Off-topic: + Show Spoiler +watching Day[9]'s Funday Monday is making me feel SO much better. :-D
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EPT
