I bet you're one of those girls who likes to dance

Extra Honey is a weekly-ish newsletter of personal essays, poems and other treats from a pastry chef turned writer, shop girl and dog walker. If you enjoy the newsletter, consider hitting the 💛 button, commenting or sharing with a friend. Thank you for reading! You can also find me on instagram.

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It was 2019 at a wedding in wine country when my then boyfriend saw me looking at the dance floor longingly and scoffed, I bet you’re one of those girls who likes to dance. He said it as if only someone with a sick sexual deviance would want to shake their ass to Usher.

The thing is, I don’t like to dance. I wouldn’t even say that I love to dance. The reality is that I NEED to dance. It’s not so much a passion of mine as it is a part of my innate biology, to move my body when I hear a beat. That’s not to say I’m particularly GOOD at dancing by any standards, nor do I think that it’s a skill that requires measuring. It’s just something I do, like breathing and eating and sleeping. I dance. I move my body to the rhythm. Even if it’s just the sound of the A/C humming or the tick of the pilot on the stove or a ten second jingle for chicken tenders in a Burger King ad. The most obscure vibration will get me grooving. Of course, it would be strange and off-putting in civilized society to shake my hips or twirl at every passing car radio or boombox on a bike or tweeting of a bird, so you won’t often catch me dancing in public (unless it’s Motown Monday at the Shortstop).

But, in the safety of my own home, I’ll be breaking it down to the Love Island theme song or whichever jingle is associated with whatever show I happen to be streaming. You could catch a beat from a mile away, Max will say. It comes out most when I’m relaxed and feeling silly as I usually am when it’s just us at home. But also sometimes when I’m stressed or sad and need to get out of my head and into my body.

Back before I met the aforementioned dance-averse ex-boyfriend, I lived alone. I usually think of that time in my life as lonely, a dark spot in my past when I wasn’t taking good care of myself and I had low self esteem. It’s easy to fixate on the bad instead of the good of any given period in history. But the truth is that I got to know myself intimately during that time. On the days when I didn’t have to go to my 5AM baking job, I would wake up to the sun shining through my little apartment windows and I would make myself oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter and I would fill Honey’s bowl full of kibble and then I’d put on my favorite songs and I would dance with my whole heart. And while much of that time in my life was plagued with sadness and heartbreak, I didn’t feel lonely on those mornings. I felt wholly myself and I felt free. As I always do when I’m moving my body to music.

So yeah, I guess you could say I’m one of those girls who likes to dance. And even though I didn’t have the courage to end that suffocating relationship when I was faced with such an offensive remark on that night, you better believe I still got up from my seat and beelined it to the dance floor.