I love to go dancing but I rarely do. I'm reluctant to go out to clubs because while I love dancing, I usually don't like all the crud that goes with a night of going out. I'm never hip enough to know which clubs to go to and even if a friend suggests one I'm always stressed out about what I should wear. When I was younger and single I didn't want to deal with creepy guys that were looking for someone to spend the night with. Now that I'm married and in my 30s I'm worried that I'm going to be surrounded by a bunch of single-20-somethings that are more worried about drinking in excess and finding someone to hook up with. I don't want to go to their mating meat-market. I just want to dance. Me and my friends. If you're some guy and you're being really aggressive wanting to dance with us, please go away. We're just here trying to have a good time. Go work your "charm" on some other gal.
But last night was fun. Lots of fun. As I mentioned in another post, Bernadette is leaving next week. She decided that a group of us gals needed to go out dancing before she left. A couple of B's friends recommended a club in the Ala Moana Outrigger hotel, Rumors. There was a group of about six of us girls, mainly in our mid to late 30s. When we got to the club around 9:30 (which is obscenely early) the place was pretty busy, but it was most filled with folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s shaking a tail feather to some great 80s tracks plus the occasional dance-along song like the "Electric Slide". We were on the younger end of the spectrum at that point. But it was enjoyable if only for people watching. I got the sense that most of the patrons were tourists staying at the hotel. They just didn't feel local.
It wasn't too long after we got there that the DJ started shifting his play list to more Top 40/hip-hop songs. That's when we decided to hit the floor. I didn't really notice at first, but after a while the demographic changed substantially in the club. It went from a lot of older white folks to a lot of younger non-white folks. Black, Filipino, Hawaiian, Samoan, Japanese. Now this is more like Hawaii. The place also started to fill up quite a bit, so much so that I was glad that we got there as early as we did so we were able to get a place to sit for our occasional respites from dancing. Everyone in the club seemed to be in a great mood - no undercurrent of aggression. (I've been in clubs where the battle over the attention of women leads to a weird vibe of tension that flows through the crowd. Not last night though.)
Of course there were sailors. Apparently some event for submariners was happening last night. As our group was dancing I noticed the dress whites of junior enlisted guys scoping out the floor. Third and Second class Petty Officers. (E-4s and E-5s). Early to mid 20s. I thought to myself, "They are decidedly not going to have any issues meeting someone tonight." Imagine my utter shock when they decided to come and dance with us! If that's not an ego boost to a gal in her 30s, I don't know what is. Bernadette and her friends are all tall, blond and beautiful though, so I wasn't surprised that they got the guys' attention. I was surprised, however, that these young men like short redheads too. Go figure. The guys were sweet and very polite, exactly the correct way to approach someone to dance with them.
We spent the rest of the night dancing in our group and occasionally dancing with them. I'm guessing they knew we were unavailable, seeing as none of us girls were mauling them in their dress uniforms, but they didn't know that most of us were married to the military - some of us to senior enlisted Navy. It was nice to use my Navy knowledge to read the ribbons they had on and their rate and rank. I just had to shake my head at how old I felt compared to them, though. At one point Michael Jackson's "PYT" came on and one of the sailors started singing along to it. I laughed at him and told him that he wasn't old enough to know that song. Then I realized that I wasn't joking. This kid was most certainly born a few years after the "Thriller" album came out. I think I was seven at the time. I just laughed.
Probably the best ego inflater of the night was only indirectly tied to our sailor dancing buddies. At one point us girls took a breather at our table and one of Bernadette's friends, a tall attractive blond (a girl who I would imagine would never have any issue getting a guy's attention) took a sip of water and then paused. "Do you realize how young those guys are?" she asked. I smirked and nodded. "I mean, they're early-mid 20s." I nodded again. "And they're dancing with us!" she gleefully concluded. We all broke into huge grins, but I was stunned that I wasn't the only one who was pleasantly surprised that they were dancing with us.
I guess all girls like a nice ego boost every once and awhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment