Disco? Duck.

At some point in the course of every short/tall relationship, the short person will drag the tall person into an establishment where scantily-clad people gyrate lewdly.

The tall man is more than qualified for an orgy. Unfortunately, this is a dance club.

The short person, laboring under some odd delusion, thinks he's doing a good deed, like buying Girl Scout cookies or giving a blind skier a push. He's trying to get the tall guy to break out of his shell. He doesn't realize that this shell has been carefully constructed over the decades to guard against emotional upsets caused by pastimes like this. Maybe to short folks dancing is harmless entertainment, but to tall people it's the start of a story that ends "and then everybody gouged out their eyes."

See, much of the tall adolescent's life is spent making lists. There's the list of things we can do and what we can't. Play basketball, can. Reach stuff on high shelves, can. Blend in with a crowd, can't. Hide in a box, can't. There's the list of places to avoid: pedestrian tunnels, elementary schools, Japan. There's the list of things we look like: string beans, toothpicks, street lights. We commit these to memory, and they help us avoid unpleasantness.

The short person, though, is oblivious to this mountain of accumulated data. He appears out of nowhere and demands that we dance, thinking we've somehow underestimated our talents. He wasn't there the last time I tried: feet were stomped, noses were poked, legs were tangled together. It's just lucky I was alone at the time. Asking a tall person to dance is like asking Matthew McConaughey to smoke a joint with you, or asking Ron Jeremy to kiss your sister. You might assume the rules of polite society will be strained a little, but more likely police will be called.

Short people who want attention have to go to ridiculous lengths. They have to wear loud clothes, or buy Hummers, or throw things at hotel desk clerks. Tall people just need to stand up, and every eye in a hundred miles will swivel our way. A major objective of ours, then, is to get people NOT to stare. We'll buy black clothes, beg our barbers not to do anything fancy, and hunch over like the St. Louis Arch just to get people to look elsewhere for a change.

If a short person truly wants to be helpful, he'll help the tall guy in this pursuit. He'll find a log to hide under, or a hole to sit in, or suggest spending the afternoon in a crouch. The tall man will appreciate these efforts, especially if the short man has packed snacks.

In a perfect world, the tall man wouldn't stand at all. He knows he has to, though, because if his ass gets any flatter he won't be able to keep underwear on. Walking is even more problematic, because now he's got to move his overstretched form in some kind of rhythm. Dancing, though, is the ultimate challenge. Moving those ridiculously-long appendages in some semblance of rhythm? It's like a normal-sized person trying to ice skate with a shishkebab in each hand.

Now that you've pushed him into it, the tall man stumbles onto the dance floor and goes for it. He nods his head, slides a foot, swivels his shoulders . . . all very slowly, one at a time. Thrusts out his hips, taps a foot, bends a knee. One after the other. He'd be following the beat if, say, a Gregorian choir were singing, but this is "It's Raining Men" and now even passing dogs are starting to stare.

The tall man is humiliated, and you, his date, get what you deserve. You wanted to show him off, didn't you? Well, people are looking. You're probably having flashbacks of happier times in your relationship, back when neither of you were sweating like Dr. Phil after a 5K run and praying for the earth to open up. But no -- you had to push things. You had to buy another beer for Billy Joel.

The inability to dance stems directly from the ridiculous height. See, the central nervous system is something like a highway. Signals from the brain travel down it to different parts of your body, telling your hands and feet and arms and legs what to do.

With short people, the brain waves don't have far to go. The brain is maybe two feet from the fingers, and three feet from the toes. For electrical impulses, this is the equivalent of walking from the kitchen to the living room. They reach the extremities in a millionth of a second, enabling the average-sized dancer to move fluidly to music, resulting in a pleasant spectacle and an enjoyable pastime.

With tall people, the situation is slightly different. Now the trip is so long the brain waves need to prepare for the ride. They have to pack clothes, stop newspaper delivery, take the dog to a kennel and get the car tuned up. It takes hours of preparation just to get on the road, and even then they'll want to stop on the way to go to the bathroom, or pick up another Snapple.

The tall person, then, will hear a beat and try to move to it. He'll head home, drink a glass of milk, take off his clothes and go to bed, and right around the time Kelly Ripa chirps her good mornings, his foot will finally kick.

If you're still determined to dance with a tall guy, do yourself a favor: make it a slow number. He'll end up a hunchback and you'll spend five minutes staring at nipple, but compared to the alternative that's like winning the lottery. At the very worst, a tree-trimming crane will appear, and a guy in an orange vest will try to replace the lightbulb in his head.