I almost want to say “I’ve forgotten what inspired this list,” only I haven’t. It’s there in the list. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which item 😀

You might be a dancer if:

• You go to a gathering where lots of people are barefoot and you think, “Wow, all these people have really flat feet.”
• You can’t stop your hands from twitching when you’re watching a ballet.
• You manage to count every piece of music into phrases of 8.
• When someone says, “Count me in!” you automatically shout, “…Five, six, seven, eight!”
• You find yourself choreographing short modern dance pieces … to the jingles from YouTube ads.
• Ditto TV and radio jingles.
• Let’s not even talk about movie soundtracks.
• You have officially spent so much of your life wearing leotards that normal clothes feel weird.
• You own six pairs of technique shoes, each with different characteristics and applications, that are essentially indistinguishable to normal people.
• And pointe shoes. Let’s not talk about those, either.
• You do rond de jambes. In line. At the supermarket.
• You can intelligently discuss intra-company politics at a ballet company halfway around the world — but you honestly have no idea who your local representative is.
• Your friends arrive at your home for a party only to stand around looking awkward as you hastily stash all the dance belts that were drying in front of the air conditioner vent.
• Your friends don’t even bother to look awkward because you know them all from class.
• But sometimes you don’t recognize them with their clothes on, which *is* totally awkward.

“And then I walked right up to Pierre and introduced myself and he said, ‘Marie … We’ve been partners for six years.’ It was awful.” (Image: Henri Rouen, The Ballet Class, 1875, via Wikimedia.)