everything but the girl. what do most people say when you ask them "what kind of music do you listen to?" the answer is, four out of five times, "everything but country." so explain to me, if you will, the popularity of country line dancing. girls love it. mention line dancing and i guarantee that most girls would be like "i'm in, sounds like fun." but it's not about the music right? i mean, eighty percent of people don't even like country. so there must be another reason behind why people (mostly girls) love line dancing.

my first hypothesis is that line dancing requires little to no skill. anyone can do it. it doesn't take a whole lot of coordination to step in, step out, step to the side, etc. it's cooler than square dancing, easier than the electric slide. this must be the appeal of line dancing. if all girls love to dance, but not every girl can dance, the solution is line dancing -- where every girl can look like a star. have you ever seen a bad female line dancer? i wouldn't know, since i've not been line dancing in awhile.

my only encounter with line dancing is through george, who used to date a chinese guy whose family owned a country bar/restaurant in el cajon. how that worked out i don't know. but for a few years during high school, george was country queen. and since we shared cars and acoustic hallways, i was subjected to some twinkling country tunes. hell has a country soundtrack, apparently.

now what's in it for the guys? tragically, guys can be bad at line dancing -- guys can be bad at anything really, there's nothing a guy can't be bad at. sometimes one two step is just too difficult for a guy. compound awkward feet with tucked in shirts and you have the silliest bunch of males on the planet struggling to keep up with alan jackson's greatest hits. it's not a pretty sight. add in all the plaid patterns that guys wear at country bars and it just gets worse. there's just too much plaid in the world. the appeal of line dancing for guys is the girls and the beer, and not necessarily in that order.

this brings us to another reason people might like line dancing. in line dancing, you're supposed to look a little silly. so even if you suck or you feel stupid, it's okay! there's no pretense of "i'm the bomb line dancer" because that really lends you no social cachet. line dancing is a cool free zone. how cool can line dancing be? i mean, like, really? so even if you look like a retard, you're surrounded by retards, so it's all good. line dancing is the safe haven for people who don't want to worry about what other people think of their rhythmic stylings. this translates to enormous amounts of fun. or so i hear.

i wouldn't know because we didn't quite make it to line dancing this week. maybe if we go next week i can visually confirm my suspicions and verify my hypotheses of why people like line dancing. it's not about the music, it's about the freedom to be silly.

but how can i go when i'm so against tucking in my shirt? why do they make guys do this?! "country line dancing: tuck in your shirts and leave your style at the door."