This is a little girl in the Everest Region of Nepal dancing in celebration of Tihar... but for now I've decided I want to talk instead about dancing, alcoholism, and aliens.

Why? Because this is my website! lol Plus, I've already written about the Nepali Festival of Tihar HERE.

This is an excerpt from a larger list, where I give various activities a Sober Fun rating of 1-10. Entries from this list are scattered throughout my website, or you can find that complete list HERE.

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DANCE CLUBS & DISCOTHEQUES: 0

I have long since thought that if there really are aliens in this world, then they are most likely very confused about what exactly we are doing inside our discotheques and night clubs. Watching us dancing in groups to loud techno music, I know they are looking down on us in these buildings, with their infrared eyesight, saying, "We are going to need to do more research, our findings are inconclusive.

"At first we thought the dancing was some kind of mating ritual, but it ends in sex for very few of the heterosexual ones. Also, many of the heterosexual males continue to publicly display their dancing, even when they are very, very, bad at it, and it consistently produces no arousal in the females. In fact, it frequently seems to have the opposite effect. We almost concluded that they were all clearly just exercising together, but this hypothesis runs counter to the fact that most of them are intoxicated and wearing their fanciest outfits.

"Then, when two humans do pair up together, at their matrimony ceremonies they are forced to perform their little dance in front of the others. This is presumably to show the other single humans how bad they are at it, but somehow found a partner anyways. The dance is intended to give them all hope for themselves.

"Conclusion: All signs point to that they are a silly, inferior species, and we should invade and kill them all."

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For me, dance clubs weren't just a drinking thing, they were very much a drinking and single thing. Both of those conditions had to be met before you'd ever find me at a dance club. Not either/or, but all or nothing. In order to be talked into a dance club, I needed to be both single and drunk simultaneously. But even then, I always liked everything except the actual dancing part. I liked the atmosphere and the music, and I even liked knowing that there was a selection of sweaty, horny, often shirtless men, all grouped together in one spot. It was kind of like a catalogue for me to choose from. But the actual, physical, dancing part just seemed like a waste of time.

My favorite dance club in Dallas was called Village Station, and they had a second story overlooking the dance floor from above. So, I would just go up the stairs, look down at the men below, and if I found one I liked, I would simply go down to the dance floor and get him. Sure, I'd make it look like I was just there dancing, but really I'd only dance in a beeline over to the general area I remembered him occupying from above. Then, after dancing for (ideally less than) a minute or two, I'd propose either through hand gestures or through loud yelling that we should go and get a drink, and talk. And if for some reason that didn't pan out, I'd start the whole process over again.

Even if I arrived and to the club and saw a hot guy from the sidelines, on the periphery of the dance floor, I liked seeing allllll the options from above first, before making my selection. Just grabbing the very first hot guy you see on the outskirts of the dance floor would be like buying the very first couch you sat in, at the closest store, and I would never ever do that. Even if it seemed pleasant enough, how would I know it was the best of the best, without first seeing every other available option first? That's why I liked seeing everyone from above, the whole collection on display, before making any hasty decisions.

I want to clear something up, I can actually dance. I'm not going to win any awards, but a common misconception when you tell people that you don't really care for dancing is that it must be because you aren't very good at it. This is simply not true, in fact, I'm sure you can think of a lot of things that you can technically, physically do, but just don't care to engage in unless absolutely necessary. Here's a good example: In the late 90's, I also didn't enjoy being dragged to stupid drum circles. I'm a musician, so it's not that I didn't have rhythm, it's that I just didn't see the point of banging around on things with a bunch of strangers in a circle. It's silly and it's loud and what's the end game here?

Dancing at night clubs, however, does have an end game, and if you claim otherwise, I might suggest you are being naive. It is little more than a mating ritual, a means to an end, so why not just cut to the chase? If you think I'm being reductive at best, or chauvinistic at worst, then let me reverse it and propose to you dancing in different terms.

If you are a happily married man, in sobriety, and you go out dancing with friends at a night club, I can think of 100 ways this night could end badly for you, and 100 ways you could jeopardize one or both of the two important things I just mentioned. Now. How many ways can you think of that the night goes well for you, but also does not feel like a ridiculous waste of your time?

Are you starting to see my point? If my partner told me that him and his friends were going to go out dancing at a gay night club, I don't see any scenario where my first question wouldn't be, "Um, why?"

Not because I don't trust him to make good decisions, but because I truly can't think of a good reason he'd want to go; but that's just me. He's a vegetarian, so I would probably ask him the exact same question if he told me that him and his vegetarian friends were all going to go out to a churrascaria. "Why?" It just doesn't seem like it would be any fun for them, what am I missing? No one is forcing him to be vegetarian, he is one by choice, just like no one is forcing him to be with me, that's his choice, too.

"But Ryan!" some people might say, "you are acting like dancing isn't just fun for fun's sake!" Hmm. Is it? I don't mind going to the grocery store, so long as I know I'm gonna get to eat the food later, and I'll gladly join in the fun and play sports with everyone, but I'll be damned if I spend the evening watching other people play the fun game on television. (You can read more about that HERE, I realize I'm in the minority about the sports thing.)

So If Seth told me, "I am going to go to a steakhouse, and the plan is for me to just put bites of meat in my mouth, roll them around for a little bit, and then spit them out back onto the plate, no harm no foul!" Again, that would be his choice, so I wouldn’t be angry, but now I would be confused. And worried. My question to him would no longer be a simple "Why are you going?" because now it would be clear that we might need to have a serious conversation about some much bigger issues.

"Sweetums, Dearheart," I'd probably say, "First, if I were you, I'd run that meat-spitting idea past your friends first, see they are on board with that before y'all head to the restaurant, but secondly, why don't you just EAT THE F*CKING MEAT ALREADY?"

I know this isn't what they will tell you in AA, but there are some people in sobriety who are so miserable after getting sober, and want to drink so badly, that my advice to them would be just to go ahead and drink already. Stop making everyone around you miserable! Drink, if that's what you really want to do!

I met a guy in rehab, and I invited him and his family on a sober ski trip with me and some friends. He was so angry about not being able to drink, that he took it out on his wife and kid. He acted like he was doing everyone this big, brave, enormous favor -- not drinking, even though it's all he really wanted to do -- that he was an absolute nightmare to be around. My opinion was that he should just go ahead take up drinking again, because shit! He couldn't possibly be any more unpleasant than he already was sober.

Similarly, if you are married and sober but still find yourself needing to regularly go out to dance clubs, I would ask you to examine why, and whether one or both of those situations -- the marriage and/or the sobriety -- might not be the right fit for you. Dance clubs just don't hold much appeal for the happily sober, happily married individual. Sorry, they just don't.

However, there is one more thing that dance clubs do have to offer, and it was also the real reason I was usually there. Picking up guys was just a passing amusement to entertain myself while I waited for my real passion to arrive, the cocaine. No one should be surprised when I say that nightclubs and discotheques are notoriously where you can find drug dealers, not just of cocaine, but of any drug imaginable. Which is why dance clubs/discotheques get a Sober Fun rating of 0. Sorry, I know that sucks, but it's my list. I'm sure you could make a case that there's still sober fun to be had at dance clubs, but my feeling is, why even risk it?

Every person I know of, that tried to only stop the drinking and drug use, but change nothing else about their lives? Yeah. Those people are all drinking and using again. Sorry, if you really want to be sober, dance clubs aren't for you anymore. Join a Zumba class.

The aliens can't possibly find anyone in that Zumba room threatening, so maybe they'll kill y'all last.

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Read more about possible alien involvement in our world HERE!