An interesting... sokkie dans

For the first time I went to a sokkie sokkie for the gays - termed a GAT party by the regular attendees.

There are few things more enjoyable than watching people dancing. Hand in hand, cheek-to-cheek, spinning around in rhythmical fashion. The smiles shared between couples waltzing around a dancefloor make me feel great, and I sat a few weeks watching this parade of people swishing gracefully anti-clockwise around the room. It was such a grand, chilled-out evening with few worries, cheap beer and no drama whatsoever. And full of homos.

It is the first time I have ever been at a gay party which came with so little admin, drama and judgementalness, and so much happiness.

The gays are a tricky bunch. Very few of us are the typically screechy queen that popular culture loves to display us as – in fairness, that’s the meaningful equivalent of the hypocritical white liberal, the khakid-up Dutchman with a comb in his sock and the fact that the logo for every single thing in KZN is a badly-drawn King Shaka. I digress.

Although every subculture has its own politicking, (open generalisation) gays have a nasty bitchy streak that’s constantly on show (close generalisation). In fact in our world, being a bigger bitch adds to your brand value. Unfortunately, this manifests itself in our behaviour – becoming the biggest prick (no pun intended) means smashing other people down with your self-confidence rapier. This, in turn, possibly on a subconscious level, means we need behave as if we are impervious to criticism, hence the obsession with highly-crafted bodies, dress sense and other superfluous and expensive crap.

Because of our obsession with keeping ourselves at the top of our game constantly, it is very hard to just chill. Even what we think is a chilled, relaxed evening out ain’t no rugby braai. And this is why the aforementioned sokkiedans partytjie I was at on Saturday absolutely blew me away. Quite frankly, it was a room full of gays enjoying themselves in a very “straight” and traditional way – simply by dancing. Not in a showy-off, check-out-the-junk-in-my-trunk manner, but proper, lekker, classic dancing – I did a (toe-crushing) waltz for the first time in my life there. What could have been a night of personal-worry was actually stress-free fun – like singing alone in your car.

I think that we sometimes forget that fun is a simple thing, and in amongst the showmanship the simplicity gets lost. As ridiculous as it sounds, straight people have a lot to teach us when it comes to enjoying ourselves. I can sense that people may think I am saying that gays don’t have fun or are miserable inside – not so. My point is that fun is not necessarily an extension of judgemental bitchiness, a waxed, contrived body or Dolce & Gabbana. I think that the sooner we realise this, the happier more people will be.

So thanks to the sokkie-dansers. The lesson was good.