Sunday night I went to a friend’s going away party. The party was fun and a lot of my close friends were there, but there were two things that bothered me throughout the evening. One was personal, one was more ideological, but both were connected. This isn’t any groundbreaking news, necessarily, but it’s something I don’t tend to think about.

As for the personal issue, I would like to say that I’m comfortable getting out there in the middle of the dance floor and shakin’ it like there’s no tomorrow, but that’s not entirely true. I love dancing. It’s a huge rush, good exercise, and a unique type of social interaction. It’s taken me a while to get past my dancing phobia and to believe others when they say I am actually good. And on this night, I just wasn’t really feeling it. Not to mention it wasn’t my type of music. Songs with lyrics like “I’ma get get get get you drunk…,” I have absolutely no clue how to dance to. My body just literally goes, “huh?” I think, dancing-wise, I was born in the wrong era. I should have been a 1930s or 40s dame, so I could groove with the cats and swing dance til the sun don’t shine. I realize this probably makes me “uncool” in some circles, but I couldn’t care less.

However, this brings me to the ideological issue, which would never have allowed me to feel good about living in the 30s or 40s.

On the train ride to my friend’s house, I sat with a group of my NYU friends, one of whom had a copy of Cosmopolitan open on her lap (notice I’m not giving you the link to their website), and was nonchalantly reading some of the profound advice aloud to the rest of us. Ingenious pieces such as:

“Sex positions he’s always wanted to try.”

“How I got him to commit.”

“What he thinks about when you’re naked.”

Some of my friends laughed. Some of them rolled their eyes. I blamed my wisdom teeth for not being able to smile much (sorry – it hurts to laugh). They caught on to my BS and told me, “Oh, Emily, turn down the feminism a notch.” Nope. Sorry. I hate it. I hate Cosmo. And I truly believe that magazines like Cosmo do more damage to women than shows like Sex and the City, because, well, Sex and the City is fiction, after all. Cosmo dares to give women advice on how to be happier, how to “please their man” etcetera etcetera. This stuff escapes my radar most of the time, so when it does come into my sphere I have a strong physical reaction to it – a sort of pattering of digust in my abdomen. I would go so far as to blame the likes of Cosmo for my dancing phobia, because I know I won’t look like the women in the magazine – sleek, come-hither, whatever. I don’t look like them. I don’t dance like them. I dance like me.

But I wish I could dance like this.

After the party, as we waited for the train in Hazlet, NJ, and as the rain poured on us my friends and I literally started singing in the rain. It was liberating and wacky. No one else was around. We belted out showtunes and cheesy songs like we were on American Idol (yes, we were really bad). We made silly faces, swayed too and fro to “A Whole New World.” We were ridiculous. But it didn’t matter, because no one was there to tell us that. Since then I’ve taken to singing softly to myself as I walk down the street when the mood strikes me. No one seems to mind.