I Can Never Dance Because I Am Not Too Sure What To Do With My Face

I can never dance, and the main problem isn't my feet or my hips or my complete lack of rhythm. 

The main problem is that I have no idea what to do with my face. 

While everyone else seems to have figured out the mysterious art of facial choreography, I'm standing there moving my body to music while wearing the expression of someone trying to remember if they locked the front door.

Watching good dancers, you realize that dancing involves your entire being, including parts of your anatomy you never considered dance-related.

Their faces are part of the performance, smiling, ecstatic, looking sultry, conveying the emotion of the music, becoming one with the beat. 

My face, meanwhile, remains stubbornly committed to looking like I'm concentrating very hard on not falling over.

This is what self-consciousness does to natural expression. 

The moment I become aware that dancing requires facial participation, my face freezes into whatever random expression it was wearing when this realization hit. 

Usually this is a look of mild confusion mixed with the concentration of someone trying to solve a math problem while walking.

The overthinking starts immediately. 

Should I smile? 

That feels forced. 

Should I look serious and intense? 

Now I look angry. 

Should I close my eyes and feel the music? Great, now I look like I'm having a stroke. 

Every facial choice feels wrong, which makes me more aware of my face, which makes every subsequent facial choice even worse.

Good dancers don't think about their faces because their faces are just responding naturally to how the music makes them feel. 

But the moment you start thinking about what your face should be doing, you've lost the plot entirely. 

You're no longer dancing—you're managing a complex performance involving multiple body parts that all need to look spontaneous while being completely calculated.

The cruelest part is watching little kids dance. They have no face strategy whatsoever, they just move and their faces do whatever faces do when bodies are moving to music. 

They look happy, concentrated, silly, focused, all without a single thought about facial management. 

They're too busy dancing to worry about what dancing looks like.

So I continue to avoid dancing, knowing that the moment I step onto any dance floor, my face will betray me by looking exactly like what it is: the face of someone who has no idea what to do with their face while dancing. 

And somehow, that knowledge makes the whole thing even worse.

And in case you are think right now “This guy is messed up”

You are right. Absolutely.