Speaking specifically about white people in :amerikkka: dancing just...isn't really a thing that people learn any more (in particular men) unless they actively seek out dance classes. If you've never learned how to dance, I can totally understand why you'd be afraid to make a fool of yourself. I'm thankful to have been brought up in a culture where everyone dances; I was always inclined to dance from a very young age anyway, but I don't think I would enjoy dancing nearly as much if it hadn't been de rigeur at all social gatherings. It's a shame, since dancing is one of the most primal social activities; at it's core, it's simply moving in time with a rhythm, and even if you don't do "dance" you probably do this to some degree while listening to music, consciously or otherwise. There will of course be people who truly don't enjoy dance in the same way that there are people who don't care for music in general, and that's totally fine, but I think a much larger portion are people who have come to believe that they "can't dance."

I've never been able to find a really good anthropological treatise on the subject, but I've always been super curious about the rapid yet unceremonious death of social dance in the US. You look back as recently as the 50s and 60s and white teenagers were cutting a rug all over American Bandstand, but by the 80s that kind of social dance seems to have completely vanished. The best theory I could come up with is that the countercultural movement rejected fixed "dances" in favor of ecstatic dancing and the like, but that's pure speculation on my part. Seriously, if anyone knows of any good research on this I'd love to read it.

Also, separately, I completely understand not getting the super high-level competitive dance. It's impressive, but it's an entirely different beast from what us mere mortals do. Like, competitive salsa is fucking wild and not really something that interests me (to watch or aspire to) but social salsa is tons of fun. When you have two good dancers who are in sync with each other, everything flows naturally and (IMO) it's one of the most amazing feelings in the world.