Researchers Discover Irresistible Dance Moves 215
sciencehabit writes "To find out if certain dance moves are more attractive to women than others, researchers recruited a bunch of college guys and used motion-capture to create avatars of them dancing. When women watched the avatars (2 videos included in story), the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs. The researchers say dancing is thus an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds, who also move in special ways to attract mates."
Science! (Score:2, Funny)
the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs
Discovering what common sense knew years ago, Today!
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What are you talking about? Everyone's known for years that guys who dance like they're a frog in a blender don't make the cut.
This is NOT news. Except maybe to nerds, [...]
... which is why /. links to the whole article, for your convenience.
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I didn't, I thought that the key was to look confident by sticking your arms in the air, which I get extremely embarrassed about. This whole torso and neck thing is right up my spinal alley.
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Either that or the videos are mislabelled. Because the "good video" sure has a lot more arm flailing and rapid leg movement than the bad one.
But it is coordinated arm and leg "flailing". Where coordinated in this case = the ability to precisely move multipl
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A frog in a blender is not dancing. Neither is a fly on flypaper http://www.naute.com/stories/fly.phtml [naute.com]
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Re:Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Perhaps where you are from that is the common sense, but where I am from, none of that is common sense.
I mean, my definition of common sense is the "Look both ways before crossing the road" - kind of stuff.
I was merely jabbing that it didn't take a bunch of research scientists creating a bunch of avatars to determine that women don't find flailing arms attractive.
Perhaps Common sense in this scenario would have been to simply ASK women what they find attractive in male dancing.
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Perhaps Common sense in this scenario would have been to simply ASK women what they find attractive in male dancing.
Which is exactly what they did. Except they removed the actual male who's doing the dancing from the equation by using those avatars. In case, you know, something about the male himself changed the females' evaluation of his dancing.
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Perhaps Common sense in this scenario would have been to simply ASK women what they find attractive in [anything]
I'd love to see the results for this compared to experimental results.. I suspect they will be quite different.
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E.g. if I showed you a study saying that being cold causes you to hav
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Huh? Common sense isn't supposed to be illogical.
It depends on whether your commoner uses Newtonian or quantum physics [iop.org].
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Uh.. heavier objects do fall faster (as they exert a gravitational pull of their own which will give them a very very very slight increase in acceleration over a lighter object when both are falling towards earth - of course the difference is negligible when compared to the gravitational pull of the earth so you can ignore it in most cases). I don't see what religion has to do with race so that doesn't make sense. Why doesn't it make sense that man descended from apes? It makes more sense than men being cre
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Hmm. Seems to me that with 2 objects, one with twice the mass of the other, both being dropped at the same time, the following would happen:
The more massive object would have twice the force being used to accelerate it than the less massive object. But, in order to accelerate the more massive object, it would take twice as much force to cause the same acceleration. So the actual acceleration for both objects would be the same. Of course this isn't taking into consideration any time dilation effect due to th
Heavy objects falling faster? (Score:2)
http://iopscience.iop.org/0143-0807/8/2/006 [iop.org]
How quantum mechanics says that heavy objects fall faster:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=39234 [sciforums.com]
In any case, whether heavy objects fall faster than light ones is tangential to the story. Many studies are wrong, some are pointless, but most have some relation to objective reality even if they c
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You have to consider that the object itself is exerting a gravitational pull though. Every mass in the universe could be said to be gravitationally attracted to every other mass, just the inverse square law makes the attraction rather weak in most cases. Place two suns in close proximity and they will accelerate towards each other a hell of a lot more quickly than two billiard balls placed the same distance apart..
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Un... no. In a vacuum, all object fall at the exact same acceleration regardless of their mass.
In the real world, friction caused by moving through the air mucks things
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That's what they tell you in high school, but you're forgetting the gravitational pull of the objects themselves. *sigh* Had this same conversation on slashdot a couple of years ago. I didn't even study Physics past "advanced higher" high school level, but it's pretty obvious. Do you think the moon would accelerate towards the earth at the same rate as an elephant if you dropped them both from 50 metres (in a vacuum of course)?
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Yes it would.
M1=mass of the earth
M2=mass of the moon (or elephant)
Fg = G*M1*M2/R^2
A=F/M2
A=(G*M1*M2/R^2)/M2
A=G*M1/R^2
The additional gravitational force between the earth and the moon as compared to the force between the earth and an elephant is balanced exactly by the fact that the moon has more inertia and therefore requires a greater force to be exerted on
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A=F/M2
And what happened to
A=F/M1
?
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You're right, the total acceleration would be the sum of the two values.
This is the part the threw me off, because in Newtonian mechanics there's only one gravitational force involved, you just have to apply the force to both objects.
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For elephants smaller than the moon.
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What happens as you increase the mass of the feather until it weighs more than the moon? Does G magically change to be the gravitational pull of the feather once its mass becomes larger, or is it possible that the equations you learned in high school are only useful approximations of what is going on?
I have no doubt that slashdotters can be stupid, so I'll not hold it against you that you don't think beyond what your high school teachers tell you..
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What you said is only relevant if you define how fast something falls in terms of the acceleration of the object. I assert that the most intuitive definition of how "fast" something falls is the amount of time between dropping an object with 0 momentum relative to the Earth's surface, at the exact same height, and it striking the surface, regardless of the object's acceleration.
Ignoring quantum mechanics (an article has been pasted here many times), the acceleration *of the dropped object* is dependent on
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I never realized that the mass ( I am assuming that you meant mass instead of weight) of the object and its associated inertia are rendered null by gravity. That means that inertia and gravity are related or gravity supersedes inertia. I guess if I understood Einstein's theories better this would make sense.
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Common sense says that heavier objects fall faster.
At human-scale and in human environments, they generally do.
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I think you can do better.
If your point is that science regularly proves the beliefs of religious people to be incorrect - I agree. However, saying that without context or qualification is no different in terms of results than an outright lie.
Scien
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No, she's still a chick.
Her daughters say she was always a woman.
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Believe what you like.
I'm the one who, by choice, hasn't been in to work since 2007. I'm the one that didn't have to work on Labor Day, or the week before, the week after, or any time throughout the whole year.
My biggest "job" is spending about 15 hours a week practicing on the dance floor.
But, please, keep coming up with your bumper sticker philosophies. You might find one that's accurate some day.
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So... the Mashed Potato is right out?
That pic (Score:2, Informative)
that picture! (Score:2)
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Re:that picture! (Score:4, Informative)
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the two guys in the background look absolutely horrified at that girl.
It's because of how she flails her arms and legs! Thanks, Science!
So, remember nerds.... (Score:2, Funny)
...make sure your avatar dances like the example on the bottom. Otherwise, you're never going to pretend to get laid.
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It's online advertisers who are going to pick up on this report, modifying all those dancing figures in their verdammt animated ads to do more head-and-torso wobbling.
Second purpose of my dance (Score:5, Funny)
> without flailing their arms and legs
That's all well and good for impressing the ladies, but how then am I supposed to scare of my competition?
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I find talking to them usually works. If that fails, pretend to come on to them.
Re:Second purpose of my dance (Score:5, Insightful)
If you watch the two videos, the good dancer is moving his arms and legs much more than the bad dancer is. He even starts with the running man! I'm not exactly sure what the quantitative definition of "flailing" is, but the bad dancer definitely isn't flailing if the good dancer isn't.
It'd really be nice to see the rest of the videos. While I think it's a really big leap to go from good dancer to attractive mate, it could be something as simple as the fact that the bad dancer keeps his head down and looks much more defensive and withdrawn than the good dancer. My suspicion is that judging someone to be a good dancer or not has much more to do with the standard body language we already intuitively understand than with any sort of display of strength or fitness. Think about it: you could be the best dancer on earth, but if you're dancing around with your arms crossed in a defensive position, people probably aren't going to be too impressed. On the other hand, if you're dancing with your arms not obstructing your body and you keep your head level but don't really do much else, maybe no one will say you're a great dancer, but I doubt anyone will say you're a bad dancer. I dunno; I just think this study is another case of psychologists trying to prove too much with a limited amount of evidence.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.
Re:Second purpose of my dance (Score:5, Interesting)
It's important to remember that flailing != movement. The 2nd guy is moving his arms a lot more, but everything that he does is connected to movement in his torso (either playing out a movement that started in his torso or moving in opposition to it). As a result, his movements look more fluid and "connected" to what he's doing with the rest on his body.
The first guy is a poor example of flailing, because he's hardly moving anything at all. Nevertheless, if the arms aren't working in concert with the torso, then whatever the arms do looks disconnected (and creates a look of flailing).
I think this is part of the "hard to quantify" difference between an expert dancer and a beginner. Beginners are usually replicating what the see, without any understanding of what muscle groups need to be involved in the movement. This makes what they do appear very flat and mechanical. Expert dancers have the experience to know which muscles to engage when, making their movements look dynamic and fluid.
Avatars (Score:2)
What is love? (Score:5, Interesting)
If this article is any indication, it sounds like Will Farrell and Chris Kattan should be the most irresistible men on the planet.
Baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Al Gore dancing (Score:2)
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To (Score:5, Insightful)
Neave says pilot studies by his group found that asking women who's a good dancer is the same as asking who's attractive.
Does this not undermine their argument? When actual men are involved, it boils down to who is better looking. So how he moves is of little importance as long as the women find him attractive.
Re:To (Score:5, Interesting)
Neave says pilot studies by his group found that asking women who's a good dancer is the same as asking who's attractive.
Does this not undermine their argument? When actual men are involved, it boils down to who is better looking. So how he moves is of little importance as long as the women find him attractive.
You... you don't actually think that male attractiveness is directly related to physical appearance, do you? That would be very sad, that you'd genuinely know so very little about women. I mean, it's one of the variables involved, but it's far from being the leading factor (the big three are Money, Assertiveness and Muscles, in that order). I've had girls tell me the lead singers of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones are very attractive, and you know those guys look like road kill, but they are rich and famous, and so they are very attractive.
Also, women seem to believe that how a man dances is a proxy for his sexual prowess. Which I know for a fact to be a false belief because the dance classes I took had a very big impact on how I dance but no impact on how I screw (it had an effect on 'how often', but not on 'how').
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I dont know if you were trying to be funny or not. I think Spock's head would explode if he tried to analyze female 'logic' of attractiveness.
Re:To (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Spock's head would explode if he tried to analyze female 'logic'
I hypothesize that women are instinctually driven to cryptic behavior in order to promote high social intelligence in their mates: They're confusing for the good of the species.
As for the two types of dances shown in TFA, one was a submissive pose (shoulders hunched, head down, slow and predictable centripetal movement), the other was dominant behavior (open stance, chin up, unpredictable high-amplitude movements, isotropic gaze).
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I hypothesize that women are instinctually driven to cryptic behavior in order to promote high social intelligence in their mates: They're confusing for the good of the species.
Brilliant. Someone get this man a research grant! ;)
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you don't actually think that male attractiveness is directly related to physical appearance, do you?
For short term interest, yes it is. And if we are talking dance clubs, then short term is order of the day. As long as you are not spastic and "flailing [your] arms and legs" then you have a huge advantage because it gets you noticed. You are on the radar.
Assertiveness does matter more. If you are attractive and assertive, then you are golden.
Money is mostly only important for exciting long term interest.
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Money is mostly only important for exciting long term interest.
Who gets more pussy at the bar: The guy with the Ferrari keychain or the guy with the bus pass?
Re:To (Score:5, Insightful)
So ugly, pussy rich guy vs. good looking, assertive poorer guy? Rich dude's wife will be blowing the poor guy in the bathroom.
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It's been shown time and time again that the sexiest thing women see in men is confidence. It's no different here. If you watch the videos in the article, the 'bad' dancer is staring at the floor, while the 'good' dancer is clearly confident in his ridiculous gyrations. I'm not so convinced this has as much to do with the actual dance moves as the display of confidence through posture.
Except (Score:2)
As TFA says, they didn't show them the actual people, they showed them a CGI version of the dance moves that the people had carried out, put together using motion capture.
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My quote is from TFA. In a preliminary study they couldn't get women to separate who was a good dancer from who they thought was attractive. That seems to be why they made the CGI versions in the first place.
Our generation and dance (Score:5, Funny)
My mother asked me why our generation never came up with any dances. Her generation had the Twist, the Mashed Potato, etc.
I replied that Micheal Jackson killed dance. Nobody else could move like him, so we all gave up and just mosh and twitch randomly.
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The real answer is that choreographed dances suck. Move however feels good, that's all that matters.
Re:Our generation and dance (Score:4, Informative)
Real dance isn't choreographed. A good swing dancer is making up the dance to fit the mood and the music as they go along.
The female is constantly being surprised, touched, brushed and it's all part of the dance.
I am not a good swing dancer- at best I got to be average but women like good dancers so I took lessons.
Fortunately, I'm tall, make good money, have muscles, and good dental hygiene.
The last is a lot more important that most guys realize to keeping her once you catch her.
I suspect regular dancers are in better physical condition for sex once they get it.
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Actually, swing dancing is somewhat unique in that it's typically not choreographed (at least the social aspect of swing dancing). However, I have seen Lindy Hoppers who had choreographed dances that were absolutely amazing. And, much of other types of dancing (ballet, ballroom, modern, jazz) is choreographed.
With that said, yes, swing dancing is very fun in the sense that you kind of make it up as you go along. However, there are a core set of moves and basics that every dancer must know for the "making st
Re:Our generation and dance (Score:4, Insightful)
wing dancing is very fun in the sense that you kind of make it up as you go along. However, there are a core set of moves and basics that every dancer must know for the "making stuff up" thing to work (the swing out comes to mind for example).
Dancing is like programming, there's a few basic moves and techniques you have to learn, and then you make of them what you can. ;-)
Dancing is NOT like programming in that the more you dance, the healthier you get.
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Actually, swing dancing is somewhat unique in that it's typically not choreographed (at least the social aspect of swing dancing). However, I have seen Lindy Hoppers who had choreographed dances that were absolutely amazing. And, much of other types of dancing (ballet, ballroom, modern, jazz) is choreographed.
Swing is not unique at being not choreographed. Competitive ballroom is usually choreographed, but social ballroom is improvisational.
Pretty much any couples dancing in a non-competitive, social setting (e.g. club, milonga, wedding, etc.) is of necessity not choreographed because choreography requires prior planning between the couple. Exceptions would be the bride and groom at a wedding, dances with a caller (e.g. square dance) or certain dances/songs with a well-known, set choreography (e.g. minuets?).
We Did (Score:2, Insightful)
These two are 27 years old, and are the current innovators. Not Choreographed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGP8CEklpGg [youtube.com]
Again, not choreographed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkcHzqr8a34 [youtube.com]
Y
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When they start dancing ballet's in clubs, your comment will have validity in the context of the parent article.
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We saw the Twist, Mashed Potato, etc., and rebelled by not being that silly ever again.
(Pogos off the stage.)
An another assumption of universality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An another assumption of universality... (Score:4, Informative)
Claiming that research done with realistic budget limitations shames us all is asinine bullshit. You have this result, or you have nothing. This is intriguing, perhaps it merits further study, perhaps behavioural psychologists in other nations will study the locals there. Perhaps not. The only overarching conclusions were written by the five word headline, or by your own built-in summariser.
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Wrong question (Score:5, Interesting)
What they have established is who is considered a better dancer. I doubt anyone finds a blue figure "attractive" so they a judging who is the better dancer.
In real life the guy who moves the least is considered more attractive but a poor dancer. The reason is that the less you can get away with moving while dancing the more it will look like the girl is dancing "for you" and not "with you", demonstrating you have values worth fighting for even if you are a terrible dancer.
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If you've learned ballroom dancing you may have heard this one: "You are the frame. She is the picture in the frame. Everything you do is to make her look good."
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Economy of movement is still a good idea for a good dancer, and pulling off entertaining your dancepartner and looking good yourself, while moving very little is not easy. This is why many dance-school teachers men to keep their upperbody and head still and moving the rest of the body. This looks both like good dancing and gives off alpha male presence.
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The only dance move you really need to know is... (Score:2)
What about non-solo dancing? (Score:3, Funny)
What, no analysis of social dancing? Ya know, dancing with girls? With a lead and a follow?
I guess that kind of research will have to wait for a scientist willing to ask a girl to dance... might take a while.
Being an avatar, this is very useful to me (Score:2)
Being a trendy virtual avatar, this will be very useful to me. Maybe sometime they'll have the women looking at actual guys, so the humans can get some benefit from this too.
How to score chicks (Score:2, Funny)
How to score chicks
1) Cut off own arms and legs; leave head connected.
2) Flail
3) Commence to tapping ass
This is where you live. (Score:2)
Arms at your sides, 90-degree angles. Don't need no pizza, they got food there. Don't bite your lip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py5qAH7wELY [youtube.com]
"Most" Attractive (Score:2)
Hardware or software? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much of that is in our genes vs how much is in fact cultural? The dance of 500, 1000 or 10000 years ago was probably considered irresistible at their own time and boring now.
Probably is just culture what makes things (dance moves, clothing, hair styles or whatever) irresistible or not. Maybe is not just physical fitness what is being seen there, but also ability to perform or create a meme. "Functional" attractiveness of the opposite sex has changed with culture too
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Porn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Porn (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine for a second that you're a woman getting drilled away by a perfect mate, how much of that guy are you going to see? Pretty much just his torso, head, and arms, right? That would explain why the legs are unimportant in teh decision making process.
Depends what position you're doing it in. Sometimes you'd see nothing. Except maybe the pillow.
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It ties in.
When men walk, we move our shoulders. When women walk, they move their asses.
Shouldn't be any different on the dance floor, right?
WTF? (Score:3, Funny)
who are you to tell techno-viking he can't dance?
Dancing PARTY is easy (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc9VOXSH9Pg [youtube.com] an ad for beer.
Guess I don't know what flailing means (Score:2)
Chicken Dance (Score:2)
I always wondered why I never got laid when I went to bars and did the Chicken Dance. It's all so clear now.
Guys, listen up. (Score:2)
"Dancing makes women horny and men tired."
-Dad
According to this article, it is now optimal not to move either your feet or your hands when you dance.
FTA FTW.
Of course, there's another interpretation... (Score:3, Insightful)
It could just mean that the guys who used more legs and arms were just exposing their #fail more than the ones who didn't.
If you did this same test with professional dancers, how would it come out?
tensor loops (Score:3, Insightful)
What women want degenerates into a common knowledge problem. Just read this thread, it illustrates what any sensible woman already knows: the incredible male fascination with easy ways to get laid without doing any real emotional work.
Even if the ruse works, you'll likely end up with the kind of chick who is easily duped by a shallow ruse. The pussy might be good in the short term, but soon you'll have to gnaw your arm off.
To really understand what women want involves tensor calculus: it's a varying function of what the women currently has. The tensor system has fairly strong immunity to fixed points. It tends to loop through sex, babies, parenthood, graduation, sex, babies, parenthood, etc.
As soon as you achieve one of these, your emotions migrate to the next stage. There's no gloriously horny fixed point.
Sometimes you find a woman who is so disillusioned with life, she gets off the bus. She's often found in the company of a man who is sexually exhausted (beyond caring), and disillusioned with disillusioned. Who knew that caring about life makes a woman more attractive?
The other term that confuses matters is that a women evaluates what she knows about you differently than what you've stated about yourself explicitly, even if these are the same thing. This tends to happen when a woman consciously knows better, but subconsciously continues to hope.
That's where real emotional work enters the picture. To have any real success with women, you have to be able to navigate the simultaneous equations. Sometimes you wander into a cul de sac, where there's no solution at all. Then you have to jump bravely from one ledge to another. This involves the use of that other male bone, the backbone. Anakin Skywalker is not your role model.
If the relationship has any emotional equity, the backbone move is termed "conflict resolution". Many relationships suck at this. A quick test for sucking at conflict resolution is when your typical relationship goes directly from great sex to Armageddon.
These days, for people who live in urban areas, there are a lot of fish in the sea. Nevertheless, the Armageddon cycles eventually build up, until you find yourself sitting around in your underwear watching Seinfeld reruns.
And you still don't know what women want.
Re:this is /. (Score:5, Funny)
"Kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs" seems useful in adapting our ways to attracting mates, though. Seems like the moves might be quite doable while sitting on a couch.
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No, just dance like you have crabs.
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Doesn't work so well. Dance classes assume you know how to dance, but need to learn the steps. If you can't dance at all, you're pretty much SOL (unless, as another programmer I know did, you hire a private dance tutor).