Observations at a High School Dance

[Capt. Dirigible]

Eventually the parents will be so depraved, that their offspring will have to rebel by being nice.

Which I believe is known as 'Saffi Syndrome' after the daughter, Saffron, in Absolutely Fabulous..where the mother is effectively the teenager (with the partying and drug taking and petulance and irresponsilbilty) and the teenage daughter is the sensible,  hard working, responsible one...

[Utini420]

One might opine that in steampunk we're seeing the first wave of this.
That's either wishful thinking, or unbridled optimism.
\

[popuptoaster]

Aaah i have all this to come and worry about later on, my daughter is 8 in March, she came along quite late in my life (I'm 43 now), she has inherited her mum's good looks and my height so i fear she will become a target, she already knows her own mind and tastes and does not really fit in with the other kids at school in the way she likes to dress and toys she likes, she seems to be popular so i hope she'll be able to keep herself safe from these lewd dances and advances, should she fail however my advanced age has allowed me time to develop some attitude, a decent weapon collection, and plenty of knowledge of how the world works.

I'm watching you boys. 

[ulfnir]

Its a constant parental worry.
My daughter (now 15 - may the gods help me) has turned out remarkably well, and has impeccable dress sense.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[bittersweet]

Once again, I thank my lucky stars I decided to homeschool my daughter from the get go.
And it's not just the dances that make me say that.

At 15 my daughter goes to homeschool dances that have rules against bump & grind dancing. The dances are secular, as is the group that puts them on. The planners want the dances to be fun and not intimidating to any of the kids. There are a number of religious homeschool kids who go the dances, so the bar on behavoir is set pretty high to be sure everyone feels comfortable. They even changed the Halloween dance to the Teen Costume dance just to be sure the religious homeschool kids would feel safe to show up. The music is often a bit odd, they have to find songs without swear words. I think Bohemian Rapsody is played at most dances, plus they have limbo contests, and do the Macarena. There is also usually about a 60-40 split, Girls to Boys, so a lot of the time the girls dance in small circles and talk and laugh while dancing. During slow songs some girls will pair up and waltz in a silly way, and all the kids are pleasant to each other.

The dance halls that host proms and school dances in my area are always wanting the homeschoolers to come back, because our kids are so well behaved, and dance in ways that don't leave the staff feeling uncomfortable. They often describe other high school dances as a brawl and/or orgy.

Schools have some inherent problems in shaping youth behavior, because it really isn't a good idea to segregate kids by age, and hold them together all day with inadequate supervision. That is a good way to create a "Lord of the Files" environment.

In my local school district, even 6 and 7 year olds are in classes of 30. How can one adult adequately keep order with 30 kids, much less be educational. So the kids educate each other, which doesn't impart the sort of messages and learning that most adults would like to see in youth. This also creates the conditions for Teen Rebellion, as opposed to Teen Exploration.  When a teen has needs and interests that school isn't helping or is activly hindering, and the parents are enforcing schools needs over the teen's or families needs, then teens will act out. If teens are given support and understanding, they can explore their needs, interests, and dreams, and the parent is there to guide the learning process, instead of just limiting and punishing the teen for thinking independently.

I know a lot of parents of kids in public school(US) and all the parents do is complain about how awful the schools are, and how they don't serve the kids, families, or the community, so I always say to them, which would you rather deal with the public school system or your own child?  I am disheartended by how many of the parents agree with me in principle, then send their kids back there anyway.

[Victoria The Mistress]

It seems the thrust of the last several posts is; "Oh, don't worry..things are the same as they have always been, the older generation railing against the behaviour of the younger...."

Nonsense. The behaviour of youngsters today is far and away more depraved, disaffected, and violent than ever before in human history. They have no respect for parents, or indeed for any authority. Stupid fads emulate the behavior of the very worst elements of society-i.e. the wearing of pants in a "sagging" manner, exposing the undergarments, (which originated in the prison population, who are denied belts for security reasons)-and song lyrics which praise anti-social actions and attitudes. "Bitches and Ho*s and "pop a cap in yo ass." Gang violence is endemic and rampant, and these pubescent idiots think that the gangsters are the most admirable people in the world.
When I see one of these nearly brain dead young men with his pants at half mast, it makes me want to jerk them up so hard that he comes three feet off the ground, thoroughly crushing certain portions of his anatomy and insuring that he never procreates. If this generation is this bad, I cannot begin to imagine what their progeny would be like. Zombies, goons and ghouls, most likely, with the intellectual capacity of slime mold. Probably a moot point, though, because if things continue to degenerate there will be no next generation.


In my considered opinion, society would be best served by rounding them up and gassing the lot-gunpowder is expensive.

The rare youngling with Steampunk sensibilities shines like a diamond in a sea of shite!

Thistlewaite

I'm with you here on this one.

While most of the teens I come into contact with through my son and step-daughters are polite and friendly, when out and about there does seem to be a gang mentality that means adults now are fearful of gathered youngsters as opposed to merely disdainful of their youthful folly / lack of decorum.

When large groups of 12 - 18 year olds congregate in open areas and openly drink alcohol in broad daylight without fear of reprisal, then I would say things ARE worse than previous generations. The attitude of the authorities to this kind of thing is positively schizophrenic - they are breaking the law and should be reprimanded / educated, but they are misunderstood teenagers who need to be understood and made allowances for. If parents are too disciplined, then they are wrong for making their children feel out of place, if they are too lax then they are accused of not caring. Let me tell you, parenting a teenager in this day and age is like walking a razor wire tightrope while juggling jelly and gargling lighted brandy.

In my day alcohol was too expensive to get hold of easily, and the fear of what would happen if the police hauled you home was a pretty good deterrent to being too badly behaved. Now drugs are part and parcel of the average social scene from age 13 up. I would have been hard pressed to find a hard drug when I was 20!!

There does seem a sense of cold lack of care about the young today, and it's not just from the typically disaffected - a number respectable "middle - class" teenagers seem to have a similar attitude. That is what scares me I think.

And I also think that the way society has tried so hard to protect children from abuse has eroded badly the relationship between adults and children.

What seems to be forgotten is that children are only children until (legally) they are 18, then suddenly the cotton wool gets stripped away. I am really concerned that they are not equipped to survive, because even if you as a parent try to instill some sort of self-reliance in them, there is quite often an official body holding out a safety net if they feel hard done by in the process.

I don't mean to rant - my children are pretty lovely as far as I'm concerned, and like all teenagers they are only human. And I'm sure there are plenty more who are also lovely. Perhaps we could persuade them to start hanging around in big groups reading poetry and drinking tea!!

[rentreality]

I can't help but think of this:

West Side Story-Officer Krupke	DQ

...Although if gangs were like this in real life, the police would have an easy job...

[Utini420]

I just have one thing to object to: explorers. I hope we never go back to idolising them. There was pretty well always already someone there first, it's just that they were different, and therefore didn't count.

All right, I'll just call up NASA and tell them not to bother sending up astronauts anymore

And what's wrong with exploring a place that's already inhabited?  It's not as if the native people were sending us postcards saying "Wish you were here!  Here's a picture of some indigenous wildlife!"  The truly admirable explorers were the ones who understood that the native people already lived there, and were exploring for the sake of knowledge.
[/quote]
Yes, people who have basically wandered over to meet the neighbours I have no issues with. I thought we called them anthopologists.

Astronauts? I object to them, too. Why risk people when a robot will do? Why use those resources, when a robot will do? Why do we feel the need to send people?
[/quote]

Because, my dear, robots simply won't do. Ask Harrison Schmitt and Lee Silver whether Apollo 17 could have been a fraction as productive if it had been an unmanned mission. Ask the Mars Rover team how quickly they could have accomplished the same amount of science had they had human brains on Mars, in immediate control of the instruments, and able to say "What's that? That looks interesting" and then immediately step over and determine if it was interesting or not, instead of having to wait between 8 and 24 minutes to see the result of every single decision.

OK, I probably mangled the quote trail there, and I'm digging up old news, but I just couldn't leave this one laying there.

Not idolize explorers?  Are you crazy?  Wait, what this... no more ASTRONAUTS? You must be completely off your nut!

I was going to bring up a few specific examples, but some one beat me to them.  Apollo 17 being pretty much the best instance ever of major science being found by a human being in a way that a random sample would never have done. 

I'm pretty far out on my own end of the bell curve on this one, so if no one else is down there's not much room to debate:  I'm of the opinion that next to space exploration every single undertaking made by human hands pales into near insignificance.  Why send people?   Because a robot will not do (the science).  And because all there is to being human that can't be expressed in numbers can not be explored by a robot at all.  It can never tell you anything at all about what it is like to experience something.

Also, human space exploration is awesome, it is grand, and there is value in the grand awesome adventure.  I could make some positive comments about explorers, too (often the natives in one valley had little to no knowledge of the next valley, being interested only in their ancestral lands.  It takes an explorer to link together enough local areas into a big picture.) but I'll stick to space, because its been on my mind lately.

Also, you brought up the risk to humans as if it were a major reason not to send them into space.  Excuse me, but are you daft?  The adventure and the science are, quite simply, worth more than a few human lives.  America (hard to get firm numbers from the Soviets on dead Cosmonauts) has lost, in total, 17 Astronauts on space missions (never in space itself, always on the way up or down) and anther 71 ground personal.  That's over a history of about 40 years.  Not a bad bargain at all, given that we loose that many people to pointless traffic accidents daily.  Never mind that each and every single one of those dead astronauts knew the risks and chose to do it anyway.  Their colleagues know the risks, and continue to volunteer. 

Human life is precious.  We should spend it well, but its not like you can save it up anyway.

The other major point of contention on human space flight is the cost.  On this one, I'll grant you, you can send out more probes than manned flights with the same amount of money.  You sure as hell won't get the same return on that investment, but you can do it.  My answer to this isn't to make NASA send probes because that's all they can afford.  My answer is to explore space, instead of blowing up the dessert.

Any way, I don't mean to totally jack up this thread.  I just can never and will never pass up a chance to bang the drum in favor of human space exploration.  I honestly feel that if we are not working to leave our planet then we, as a species, are simply rocking in our crib, sucking our collective thumb.

[insanity assasin]

It seems the thrust of the last several posts is; "Oh, don't worry..things are the same as they have always been, the older generation railing against the behaviour of the younger...."

Nonsense. The behaviour of youngsters today is far and away more depraved, disaffected, and violent than ever before in human history. They have no respect for parents, or indeed for any authority. Stupid fads emulate the behavior of the very worst elements of society-i.e. the wearing of pants in a "sagging" manner, exposing the undergarments, (which originated in the prison population, who are denied belts for security reasons)-and song lyrics which praise anti-social actions and attitudes. "Bitches and Ho*s and "pop a cap in yo ass." Gang violence is endemic and rampant, and these pubescent idiots think that the gangsters are the most admirable people in the world.
When I see one of these nearly brain dead young men with his pants at half mast, it makes me want to jerk them up so hard that he comes three feet off the ground, thoroughly crushing certain portions of his anatomy and insuring that he never procreates. If this generation is this bad, I cannot begin to imagine what their progeny would be like. Zombies, goons and ghouls, most likely, with the intellectual capacity of slime mold. Probably a moot point, though, because if things continue to degenerate there will be no next generation.


In my considered opinion, society would be best served by rounding them up and gassing the lot-gunpowder is expensive.

The rare youngling with Steampunk sensibilities shines like a diamond in a sea of shite!

Thistlewaite

as one such "youngling" myself (being only 17) , i fully agree with you ...if my generation is to inheret the world , i ( most likely in vain) hope that it is to be the one that fixes at least *something* .... but with these sorts my hope is most limited...gassing indeed....

[Theophilus Saxe]

Utini, old chap, I couldn't have put it better. As much as I admire the Mars Rover program for its success, it would be so much better to send humans into space rather than robots, for the very reasons you espouse.

I do sincerely wish the public, in particular more young people would become as inspired by the whole concept of exploring space as my generation was back in the 60's. The trouble is there's a overweening tendency to fixate on short-term goals. It may well have something to do with the general attitudes perceived in many today. If they "can't be arsed" about their appearances and attitudes why would they care about going to the Moon and beyond?

Even so, I feel the next wave of space exploration will go ahead through private enterprise (no pun intended) and not national government organizations, with their tendency to shift with the political winds. At least some people can see the benefits of long-term investment of time and money even with little short-term gain. 

[Utini420]

Honestly, I don't even give a shit any more how interested the general public is in it.  I pay my taxes, I want my friggin' rocket.  They can waste all the money they want blowing crap up in the dessert or paying for health care to people who may not really deserve it, that's fine.  BUT I WANT FRIGGIN' ROCKETS OUTTA THE DEAL!

And given that I'm not such a fan of big business, I'd rather see NASA cleansed and purged than the gauntlet passed to industry.  But either one is fine, as long as there are rockets.

[Hikaro Takayama]

I think the whole crunk/grinding thing is, well, retarded.  But then, I thought a lot of the crap kids did at parties while I was in school was also retarded.  But when I look back on my school years, it is not the nights I held my self aloof, beholden to some higher standard, that I remember fondly.  Rather, I cherish the memories of the nights I said to hell with it, tossed civility to the wind, and jumped into the throng.  I guess what I'm saying is, its great to hold oneself to a higher standard, but that only goes so far if you're alone at the top of your personal mountain.

I completely disagree... The times I remember most fondly from my high school days are the ones where I was able to withstand the temptation to debase myself by engaging in such demeaning behavior (of course, high school for me was such that after putting up with what I had to go through, boot camp was a piece of cake! ....At least my fellow recruits were MARGINALLY more mature than most of the louts that went to my school and the RDC's were way, WAY better at maintaining discipline on the ones who weren't)...

Case in point: I could have reveresed 8 years of being the least popular guy in school and actually been part of the "in" group just by doing one (supposedly) harmless act:

You see, our school had a certain fundraiser where on one day, Girls could "buy" guys to carry their books for them the whole day, then a day for the guys to "buy" the girls... Generally stupid, IMO, but harmless....  Well, there was this one popular girl who had ticked off some of the other "popular" kids and they tried to get me (the biggest freak/geek/nert/whatever the insult of the hour in the whole school) to buy her....

Initially I was going to go along with the plan because I'd been snubbed and insulted by this popular girl on several occasions and was itching for revenge (which is part of the reason why this cabal had approached me for this "assignment").  Of course, during dinner conversation, my parents found out about this scheme, and they reminded me that I should "do unto others as I WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO ME"... I'd already had some misgivings, but that clinched it...

The next day, the day for "buying" the girls, I walked right up the front man of this cabal, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE GIRL IN QUESTION, shoved the guy's filthy money into his shirt pocket and told him that I wasn't going to do it!  THEN I turned around and apologized to the girl for even considering that course of action and figured that was the end of it.

Yes, I pretty much ruined any chance I had of ever being anywhere remotely close to "popular," but the way I figured it (and still do) is that popularity, money and fame aren't worth it if you have to sell out your principles or give away part of your soul for it... I want to be able to look myself in the mirror, thank you very much!

The best part is that that girl came up to me a couple days later and thanked me for not humiliating her, and we've been friends ever since.

I've got a whole laundry list of similar tales that I could trot out, but I say that one should be PROUD of sticking up for what they believe in and not compromising principle, no matter what!  After all, one thing that EVERYBODY hates is a hypocrite....

...Granted when it comes to things that have a low probability of personal or property damage and don't require compromising one's core principles, then I say, "die gelegenheit keine wieder kommt" which basically translates as "Do it when you got the chance, because the opportunity may never come again." (it was my grandfather's favorite saying)...  i.e. the first time I went to King's Dominion, I was too afraid to ride the loopty-loop roller coasters The SECOND time I went, I rode every dadgum roller coaster in the park!

As for the original topic, I chalk it up to the facts that (1) Parents aren't doing their DAMN JOB raising their damn kids (who are most likely LITERALLY going to be damned), and let Hollywierd do the job for them... You know, Hollywood: THE PEOPLE WHO USE SEX TO SELL FUCKING CHEWING GUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I know that if I'd have behaved anything like that, I'd have been grounded until I moved out of the house!

....and (2) the simple principle of Self-fufilling Prophecy... If you tell people that they are nothing more than "just another type of animal" enough times, they'll believe it and start acting like it.....

Granted, I'll throw in the caveat that there will be a few (and the emphasis is on the FEW part) people who inherently have a stronger will than the average and will be much less affected by such repetetive persuasion (whether or not that persuasion is intended to bring a particular outcome or not).

Still, sometime's I'd just LOVE to build a high-powered MASER and use it to systematically fry every TV station and movie/TV studio in the entire country....

Also, I completely agree with Sgt. Maj. Thisthethwaite's earlier comment...  Thankfully for the good Sergent Major, we (America at least) still have the Amish and Mennonites, so there will at least be SOMEONE to rebuild.

As for the space exploration thing.....  I was just thinking over one of the biggest problems with exploring/settling/terraforming Mars:  I.e. the lack of a magnetic field, when it hit me how to solve the problem in a uniquely steampunk fashion:  A magnetic field could be INDUCED by RUNNING AN ELECTRIC CURRENT through the core!  How to do that?  Well, our old pal, Nicky Tesla DID JUST THAT, IN 1900!!!  Yup, several strategically placed Tesla coils ought to work nicely... Best part is that they'll be using the Ionosphere as the return path, which will ALSO boost the effectiveness of Mars's Ionosphere in blocking Solar Winds...

....I just need to run some calculations on how much current we'd need to generate a magnetic field as strong as the Earth's.....

[Flynn MacCallister]

Answer: a metric fuckload, if you will excuse my language.

Still, with no atmosphere, and some extremely clever photovoltaics, it might perhaps one day be possible to re-start convection in the core via resistive heating of Mars and kick off it's magnetic field again.

[Hikaro Takayama]

Answer: a metric fuckload, if you will excuse my language.

Still, with no atmosphere, and some extremely clever photovoltaics, it might perhaps one day be possible to re-start convection in the core via resistive heating of Mars and kick off it's magnetic field again.

Well, to quote a certain other member of this forum, a planetary core is NOT a 2-stroke petrol engine... I.e. it won't be easy to start at all.

The electrical option would be more workable (especially if you use multiple tesla coils), since there are already three known MOONS that have magnetic fields due to the same basic principle... granted the electric current is generated via induction due to the moons passing through Jupiter's magnetic field, but still.... The best part about the Tesla Plan^tm is that once you get it going good, you can also use it as a planetary power grid/communications network (as Tesla himself intended it), killing at least two birds with one stone....  Like I said, I'd have to run some numbers (first would be how many Henries a planet-sized inductor would be rated at)....

[Rocketeer and Roll]

Mr. Apricot, don't take this the wrong way, but I think you are just going to a crappy school.  If the teachers and admin have no problem with this sort of thing, they obviously aren't doing their jobs very well.  They should always prep students on acceptable behavior beforehand.  

Most women I know would swoon to have a man ask them to actually dance, as opposed to rave dance.  And in all truth, most of the girls at your dance that were bumping and grinding and playing pop star with shock value antics have already set their career paths in mind, and if it doesn't involve 'stripper' or 'escort' in a few years, I'll be shocked.

I think you just need to wait a few years (unfortunately) until you enter college and then there is just not the same conformist structure in place to oversexualize everything.  You can find a woman to dance with and appreciate your superior social skills.

I am 30 and feel so old.  Those kids with the bumping and the grinding.  (shakes cane)

[Flynn MacCallister]

Answer: a metric fuckload, if you will excuse my language.

Still, with no atmosphere, and some extremely clever photovoltaics, it might perhaps one day be possible to re-start convection in the core via resistive heating of Mars and kick off it's magnetic field again.

Well, to quote a certain other member of this forum, a planetary core is NOT a 2-stroke petrol engine... I.e. it won't be easy to start at all.

The electrical option would be more workable (especially if you use multiple tesla coils), since there are already three known MOONS that have magnetic fields due to the same basic principle... granted the electric current is generated via induction due to the moons passing through Jupiter's magnetic field, but still.... The best part about the Tesla Plan^tm is that once you get it going good, you can also use it as a planetary power grid/communications network (as Tesla himself intended it), killing at least two birds with one stone....  Like I said, I'd have to run some numbers (first would be how many Henries a planet-sized inductor would be rated at)....

I was imagining that you'd get huge resistive heating in the core simply by dint of trying to run a large enough current through it to generate a sufficient magnetic field... 'Parrently not, then! XD

[Rocketeer and Roll]

Also, I'm noticing this major reaction regarding the idea of how things have progressed for youth.  I grew up in the 80s and 90s so to me, I can see a slide even from then in today's youth, and my day was nothing to brag about.

I think that something that clearly illustrates this is, excuse my language here, mothers that dress their very young daughters like whores.  You never would have seen that in decades previous but there are a great number of women that don't care about really REALLY young girls emulating sexy dancing.  The conundrum is that society as a whole seemed to be rather uniform in times past of condemning oversexualized behavior in young children, but with the permissiveness of the times past the 60s, there has also been this dualistic tendency to not judge that behavior due to the "when I was a kid I did ___" syndrome with an innate sense of unease while these trends continue.  Baby boomers don't want to judge too harshly based on their generation being the ones that broke off the rather outdated social constriction.  But now instead of being about political and job equality, it has become about the need to protect children from corporate marketing structures, which push youth culture equating to sex or stupidity.  Freedom to do what you want without it affecting your life has now been systematically co opted by those wanting that line of thinking to back their own needs.  American product placement has done a huge disservice to this country by not marketing to young people as capable of understanding more, instead they are taught the value of looking sexy ahead of their time, and that fierce individualism is dangerous in the face of social acceptance through mass produced TV shows, fads, and consumer products that push the idea that you will be happy if you don't listen to anyone but them.  Furthermore, rather than promote the idea of togetherness, marketing techniques thrive off of separating each generation as a marketable field, and the gaps between those categories is exploited as much as possible.

The do it yourself ethos and individualism oriented favored strands of philosophy inherent in steampunk are partly what draws me to it.  In Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, a character relates to Nell that at one point the Neo Victorians learned that people that made things themselves by hand were worth something in a world driven by machine made, instantaneous, cheap merchandise.  I think that partly what drives this movement is a reaction to that element of our society, which has become seemingly omnipresent and inescapable.  But that's just my two cents on the matter.

[Hikaro Takayama]

Answer: a metric fuckload, if you will excuse my language.

Still, with no atmosphere, and some extremely clever photovoltaics, it might perhaps one day be possible to re-start convection in the core via resistive heating of Mars and kick off it's magnetic field again.

Well, to quote a certain other member of this forum, a planetary core is NOT a 2-stroke petrol engine... I.e. it won't be easy to start at all.

The electrical option would be more workable (especially if you use multiple tesla coils), since there are already three known MOONS that have magnetic fields due to the same basic principle... granted the electric current is generated via induction due to the moons passing through Jupiter's magnetic field, but still.... The best part about the Tesla Plan^tm is that once you get it going good, you can also use it as a planetary power grid/communications network (as Tesla himself intended it), killing at least two birds with one stone....  Like I said, I'd have to run some numbers (first would be how many Henries a planet-sized inductor would be rated at)....

I was imagining that you'd get huge resistive heating in the core simply by dint of trying to run a large enough current through it to generate a sufficient magnetic field... 'Parrently not, then! XD

Oh, sorry, I didn't understand what you were getting at (hey, it's finals week ).. Yeah, running that much current through the planet, particularly since it will be pulsed and running at a few hundred kilo-cycles, aught to heat it right up... Hmmmm.... Inductive heating...  Just like those Amish-crafted heaters that are so popular around here.... We might be on to something!

Rocketeer:  I agree with you 100%

[cge]

While this thread has diverged into several disparate topics, I have some interest in the first on, as I have a bit of a reputation for dancing at dances where the majority of attendees are doing nothing of the sort, and thus think myself able to offer some advice on the matter.

Firstly, waiting for one of the unfortunately-raised guests to ask you to dance and then jumping into a waltz without explanation is unlikely to produce the desired result: one's partner, being sadly ignorant of dancing beyond incoherent flailing, won't have the slightest idea what you're doing, and in a dance that turns, it's distinctly distressing when one person is turning and the other is not. Besides, the waltz is not the only dance; even if one's partner knew how to waltz, what if one were to start a polka, or schottische, or two-step? Appropriate dances for modern music are not always readily apparent, especially to those with only rudimentary knowledge of dancing.

The better plan, and the plan I've always employed, is to bring partners who know how to dance, and start dancing with them. This has several important advantages. Most importantly, one is able to dance, regardless of the ignorance of others on the dance floor. If one brings the right partner, one is even able to dance well. It also has the added advantage of creating more space on crowded dance floors: a fast waltz danced by a pair of skilled dancers, with the possible addition of some subtle and well-timed extensions of feet, is a far more elegant way of convincing the epileptics crowding the dance floor to move aside than a gatling gun, and requires considerably less explanation afterward, since it was clearly their bumbling about that caused them to collide most impolitely with the real dancers.

After one has been dancing for a few minutes, those ladies who are ignorant but not wholly fallen to modern depravity may ask you to dance, while noting that they don't know how, or may express interest in such dancing, while noting that they would never be able to do anything remotely similar. This is the appropriate time to teach them to dance; though it is often said that a dance is not the appropriate place for instruction, I've found that it is necessary at many modern events not hosted by those of a more reputable upbringing. With this method, there will be no sudden jump into something entirely unexpected: those who ask you to dance, or express interest, know that you actually dance, and realize that you'll be instructing them in doing so. Similarly, you will be able to presume that they don't know how to dance, and can thus begin in a less intimidating manner—or, of course, if they just ask you to dance a waltz, you'll be able to start dancing without too much fear of an utter disaster.

However, if none of this works, one will still have the partners one brought, and won't be left unable to dance at all. I never attend what is referred to in modern society as a dance without being accompanied, since I prefer to avoid situations where I can't dance. There have also been times when we have gone to such things in groups: a few couples can clear significant portions of large dance floors with ease.

Just remember to bring armed staff with you, in case depraved brigands dislike your display of what they should be doing.

[Utini420]

Hikaro Takayama, I wasn't talking about being popular, I was talking about having a good time.  I don't really wanna go picking at this too much more, though.  I've pretty much said my thing, and I don't want to go into inappropriate territory, other than to say there are probably some very different basic assumptions between myself and someone who views damnation as a literal possibility.

As to electrifying a planet, I'm pretty dubious about more terraforming schemes I've heard of.  They just take so freakin' long, that the people who finally finish it won't know why their distant ancestors started! 

[mr_Apricot]

I do not believe my school to be a bad one, it is just that most of the teachers feel quite frightened by the thought of entering the throng to break up this sort of "dancing." Speaking to a graduate who has returned as a journalism teacher, his worst moment at the school was when he was asked to chaperon a dance. As for young women dressing like whores, this is a boarding school and i don't think that parents these days really understand what a school "dance" constitutes.

[zpyder]

Part of me clings to the hope that what we see is a result of the increasing population, the ratio of good and bad kids is the same, but as there are more kids, and as people notice the bad more than the good, it seems like we're on an express train to a mad max-esque world. But whether this hope is a fools hope I don't know.

As to the opening posters observations on the school dance, at least he went and made the effort. I refused to go to any equivalent functions when at my school and college, and then even uni (didn't go to the summer/winter/graduation balls etc), and this and a few other things have shaped me into a person I'd rather not be. I grew up thinking I'd be chivalrous and courteous, believing in proper romance and courting the lady of your dreams, but sadly I think this mentality has been a bit outdated for quite a while, or so it seems. It has resulted in a 25 year old who for want of a better term is pretty damaged now, having never even being kissed (one could argue this is a lack of guts on my behalf perhaps). I admire anyone who can stand apart from the degenerates of their generation, and yet have the guts to experience the sub-culture. It's one thing knowing better, but rigidly refusing to be a part of the normal society isn't good either, so Kudo's to mr_Apricot.

[popuptoaster]

It has resulted in a 25 year old who for want of a better term is pretty damaged now, having never even being kissed (one could argue this is a lack of guts on my behalf perhaps).

i think you'd be suprised how attractive that will make you to quite a lot of ladies, possibly not in the "Long term relationship" way your after though, i used to work and still have a lot of friends in the glamour industry and they are known for not being shy and being very frank in there discussions, it has come up in conversations several times that most of the girls would love to deflower an innocent man, it is however not usually said quite so politely.

[Rocketeer and Roll]

zpyder, listen to popuptoaster.

Seriously, zpyder, what you just wrote could have been written by my best friend.  He's older than you by a few years but has encountered the exact same problem. 

The concepts and mores that have developed in modern times are such that on a social level, when you try to get somewhere being yourself and sticking to your beliefs about acting properly, and this emulates an older mode of behavior that is seen as old fashioned, it can be very discouraging.  I hate to say "just wait, there's someone for everyone" but really when you find the person (I say this to everyone in a similar situation) it will be worth it, because then it won't feel like you're sacrificing yourself just to be with someone, and that is not something I would wish on anyone.

My best friend has had a real tough time of this, but he comes from a very "Norman Rockwell" family.  So the expectation that he had was to emulate that model.  It's not his family's fault that they were so caring and in love (his parents never had sex with anyone else, married at 18). 

I wouldn't call my best friend damaged, and I wouldn't call you damaged either.  There is a difference between damaged and not settling for something if it makes you uncomfortable.  At the very least take comfort that this thread is an indication that a lot of people are ready for a different pace to courtship.

[zpyder]

Indeed. It's weird but it seems to be 9/10 days I'm fine and then that other one it all kinda hits you.

Certainly though it's a case of, I've gotten this far, I owe it to myself to stick to my morals

I apologise if my post may have come across as a little depressed, I was more trying to basically say that from my observations, the opening poster appears to have his head screwed on correctly and has nothing to worry about!