Not my copy. Their comments, left in public under my ads, by people who were never asked and never bought anything.
Women love a man who can dance. You've heard that your whole life, and it has always sounded like something a copywriter made up, mostly because it sounds exactly like something a copywriter would make up.
I sell dance lessons. When I say it, discount it.
The comments underneath my ads are a different matter. Nobody asked those people for anything. A video of a couple dancing went past in the feed, and they typed.
A man who can dance is SO SEXY! Mmmm!
I want to be straight about where these come from, because it cuts against me before it cuts for me. Every quote in this article is a public comment on a Facebook ad I paid to put in front of somebody. There was absolutely something being sold in that moment.
Nobody requested a testimonial, though. Nobody was offered anything for saying it. Most of these people never bought a thing from me, and a good number of them are replying to each other rather than to the ad, the way you'd talk across a table while a commercial plays in the background.
We ladies used to line up at the edge of the dance floor for that one guy that could dance....good times!
Some of them say who they are, right in the comment. We ladies. Us gals. Plenty of the others say nothing about themselves at all, and I'm not going to guess at those.
I can't give you a percentage. What I can tell you is that this sentiment comes in again and again under my ads, in near-identical language, from people who have no connection to each other. Not a survey. A pile.
If you had to predict the compliment, you'd probably predict admiration. Impressive. Talented. Good at something hard.
That is not the word.
A dancing man, is an awesome man.
If men knew how sexy they looked when they danced, they would all dance!
It doesn’t matter how good a guy is in bed, women love a man that can dance!
You can decide for yourself how seriously to take that last one. The category is what I'd look at. It's ranking dancing against the thing men assume sits at the top of the ladder, and putting it above.
You may have been treating "she'd like it if I could dance" as a nice-to-have, filed next to fixing the porch light. The people writing these comments are not filing it there. They're filing it under attraction, which is a different drawer, and it changes what a Tuesday night is worth. It's also the reason Date Nights Dancing exists at all: easy swing taught at home, fifteen minutes at a time, both of you learning the same moves from the first video on.
The obvious objection is that all of this applies to men who can already dance, and you can't, so none of it is yours.
Under one of my ads, a man posted this about himself:
My lady would love this. Sadly I can’t dance and am afraid to learn.
That is your objection, typed by somebody else, in public, with his name on it. Here is the reply he got:
... she would love it no matter how you do! The fact that you try for her would be so sexy!
And this one, which names the variable more plainly than anything else in my comments:
... aw rats. My sister took dancing lessons before her wedding- but you need a willing partner. Nothing sexier than a dancing man. (I didn’t marry one either- lol- but that’s ok- he’s great at other things!)
Willing. That's the word in that comment, used for the thing the sister needed and didn't have. Not gifted. Not coordinated. Willing.
The person who wrote it isn't attacking anybody, either. They went out of their way to say their own husband is good at other things, and I believe them. What they named is one specific door in a house that has never been opened.
There isn't anything more sexy than a man that can move his woman around the dance floor
That's a comment about a man deciding where the two of them go next and then taking her there, not about technique. A lead reads as attractive because somebody made a decision and somebody else got to stop deciding for three minutes.
Us gals love this idea, and I think the guys will also. It makes one feel alive. It makes us feel wanted and sexy and in love again ...
Every word after "us" is about her side of it: alive, wanted, in love again. Nothing in there rates the man's performance.
In Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge argue that a woman's central desires are to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable part in something shared, and to have a beauty that gets unveiled rather than assessed. They also name the common male failure as passivity rather than cruelty: a man standing right next to her, saying nothing, doing nothing. That's a book's argument drawn from counseling stories and scripture, not a controlled study, so take it as a lens rather than a finding. As a lens it fits these comments unusually well. The word sexy shows up in them at the exact moment a man goes first.
Which is why the setting in this one is a kitchen and not a ballroom:
There is nothing better than impromptu dancing in the kitchen. Best way to make a woman feel sexy!
That's a Tuesday with the dishwasher running, not an event anybody would have to book.
There's a practical reason a small thing gets this much reaction, and one commenter named it better than I could:
... The skill of dance isn't all that pervasive any more. When people see it, they are not only surprised, they are delighted. ...
Flowers are everywhere. A nice dinner is everywhere. A husband who takes his wife's hand when a song comes on and moves her around the room is rare enough that people stop scrolling to say something about it.
Your working assumption might be that your wife would be embarrassed for you. Nothing in these comments points that direction. Every one of them was written by somebody watching a stranger dance, and not one of them is embarrassed for him. If you want the version of this written for the wife who's given up expecting it, that's what "my husband would never do this" is really made of, and the version written for the man who started out openly hating the idea is what changed his mind.
If you want to act on any of this, the smallest honest version I know is one song in your own house, with nobody else home.
Put something on that she likes. Hold your hand out. If it helps to have a line ready, "come here for a second" does the job and doesn't announce anything. Then move: side to side, turn her once, and stop when the song stops. That's all of it.
If you'd rather have something specific to do than sway and hope, one of the comments puts the preference plainly:
I have always wanted to learn how to dance with a partner!! I think it's very attractive when a man can dance! Taking dance lessons as a couple is ideal!
Together is the operative part of that, and it's how the Date Nights Dancing program is built: the two of you in front of the same video, learning the same moves, nobody in the room while you get it wrong. If a slow song is where you'd rather start, how to slow dance with your wife is the shorter path in.
One thing I'd suggest skipping: asking her to rate it afterward. "Was that okay?" turns the gesture into a request and hands her a job. Do it, let it be over, and do it again next week.
I have an obvious interest in you believing all this, which is the reason I've kept my own claims out of it and let the comments carry the weight. Every one of them is still sitting in public under an ad of mine, and none of it was written for you.
The one I keep coming back to isn't about dancing at all:
I enjoy reading the men’s comments. Some guys really understand what a lot of women want. It would be great to see other men get out of their comfort zones and give this a try.
Nobody gets dunked on in that one. Somebody is watching men work something out in public and hoping more of them try.
If you've read this far, you're already most of the way there. A man who didn't care wouldn't go looking for what his wife thinks about it, and wanting proof before you move is a fair way to be.
The rest of the ideas and inspiration library is here if you want a different door than this one. This one opens with a song and your hand out, in your own kitchen, with nobody else home.
The Thursday reminder over 100,000 couples love: ideas and conversation starters that deepen love, laughter, and intimacy.
