College Crisis: Grinding Scares Me

Our college years are full of dramatic “I’m not a grown up!” moments- mostly unexpected, and typically unwanted. Anonymous Valley writers discuss it all, from avoiding basic responsibilities to dealing with the big, bad future. Let’s talk about it.

I absolutely love to dance. It’s not good dancing, but whenever I hear one of my favorite songs playing I am the first one to bust a move. You’ll see me trying to doing any type of dance move from “screwing the light bulb,” to “moving the lawn,” to Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” or Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies.”

But the one type of dancing I simply cannot deal with happens to be the most popular type in college: grinding.

Even the word itself gives me the chills. Grinding is basically like, “Hey! I don’t know you and I probably never will get to know you, but let’s intimately rub our body parts together while listening to House Music.”

My fear of grinding goes back to 8^th grade, when the high school I was going to attend hosted a dance for the incoming freshman. During the dance, the boy who I had a crush on during middle school (who was obviously the main topic of my diary) asked me to dance. What I didn’t know is that boys in my grade were experimenting with this dance move called “Grinding.”

Little innocent me, who never even had her first kiss and still got excited about being hugged by the opposite sex, was told to face the opposite way of my crush and lean my body downwards while he pushed all his weight against my behind. HECK NO!

It was just so weird and uncomfortable. I had never been touched like that before in such a casual way. You would think that I would be scared of boys or dancing, but no, I’ve matured since then.

Actually in college, I’m a total Frat Star. I have my endless supply of frackets and my going out wardrobe doesn’t change from summer to winter. And I love boys, but this odd fear of mine comes up a lot when I go out to frats because the first thing a guy asks a girl when he is interested in her is, “Hey you want to dance?”

And I don’t think he means slow dancing to Avici. He obviously means grinding. So I always have to come up with some weird response to get out of it and this allows him to think that I’m not interested in him.

I don’t feel comfortable getting so close with someone who I know nothing about. Grinding is basically a sexual act with someone with your clothes on. I mean come on, we all know what it really looks like. Strangers are literally bumping and rubbing their “areas” into each other, and if that’s the way I am supposed to find a cute guy around here to date, then no thank you. Boys have to work to get that close to my body, it’s not as easy as putting on my favorite song.

If you like grinding, have at it! Grind away! Maybe I’m just weird and there aren’t any other people like me out there who feel uncomfortable doing it. But if you do agree with me, don’t be afraid to tell the other person you don’t feel comfortable and continue on with your cheesy dance moves.

Even though this fear that I have makes it a little harder to have a guy pursue me since it requires more effort, I think it helps me too. Because one day I’ll find that guy who will love to do ‘The Sprinkler” with me, and all that touching and intimacy will come in good time.

Photo by Jonathan Hsieh