At the beginning of every school year, I always try to make a mental note of the important dates throughout the academic calendar, such as Homecoming, Halloween, Reading Days, Thanksgiving Break, Christmas Break, Spring Break—well, you get the idea. However, my first priority when planning my college agenda is to find out when President’s Ball is. I realize this sounds creepy and unnecessary, but like most hopeless romantics, I have a slight addiction to school dances.

For the majority of people, these social functions generate many ambivalent emotions. Women love having the opportunity to dress up like fairy-tale princesses and parade around like fashion divas. But at the same time, many hate the hours of preparation it takes to reach diva status, not to the mention the ungodly pain of wearing high-heels for an extended period of time. For men, formal dances give us an excuse to spend a whole evening with an alluring, bodacious girl. The downside is that guys usually have to foot the bill, and when you include transportation and dinner, dances aren’t cheap. Yet between the excitement and the hassle, there seems to be a point where all the stressful planning gives way to moderate enjoyment.

The thought of dressing up and spending a night on the dance floor can also bring back many troubling memories. Recollections of high school prom, for example, are enough to permanently scar one’s psyche. I have a theory that prom is really a torturous rite of passage imposed by society in order to strip away any childhood conceptions of romance. But paradoxically, this is where my obsession with dances began (cue dream sequence … now!).

I was a junior at the time, dating a senior who attended a different high school. Being young and naïve, I felt obligated to take her to the last dance of her secondary education. The first sign that something was going awry was the archetypical awkward silence exchanged between us while my dad chauffeured us to our dinner reservation. Secondly, our solitary table at the restaurant happened to be uncomfortably close to a large group of prom participants, who spent the hour passing ironic glances at us. Once the two of us arrived at the ballroom, I knew I had entered the ninth circle of high school hell. I recognized virtually no one and was forced to witness the unnatural movements of horny teenagers. I also had no idea how to dance to any of the songs, instead opting to stand motionless while occasionally placing my hands on my date’s hips. She probably would have had just as fun with an inflatable dummy.

Anyway, after that experience I vowed to master this skill known as ‘dancing’.

Fortunately for me, Gustavus offers many avenues into the world of “dancing.”

Unfortunately, the first avenue led me to the Dive, which I would not recommend to anyone who is sober. I eventually found my way up to Swing Club, a student group that teaches popular dances from your grandparents’ time, including the Jitterbug, Charleston and Lindy Hop. Here I was introduced to a world where guys are designated as leads and ladies as follows (sorry feminists, I didn’t make the rules). In this setup, it’s the man’s responsibility to know the dance steps and guide the follow’s movement. It took awhile for my dance partners to forgive me for stepping on their toes, but I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of executing spins and rock-steps.

In my opinion, dancing isn’t just about holding hands or gyrating hips. It’s about reenacting a past when suitors and maidens would perform elegant rituals in the name of courtly love.

These days, most people seem to think chivalry is dead, or worse yet, the name of a new STD. In fact, I’ve found that it’s fairly difficult to incorporate gallantry into everyday life. Writing love songs about women and worshiping them from afar gets you labeled a creeper … at best. Thus, dances are significant because they offer a safe place for romantic interaction to occur. Romantic relationships themselves are a kind of metaphorical dance to discover your partner’s graceful qualities in addition to their not-so-graceful qualities. Granted, this dance plays out over the course of a lifetime as opposed to just one night.

Lovey-dovey nonsense aside, the real point of this column is to remind you to pick up tickets for President’s Ball because you won’t want to miss it (CAB, you can pay me advertising royalties later). To quote Lady Gaga, the wise sage of pop music, “J-J-J-Just Dance!”