Still trying to get a Play Store page with stats onto my AI Impact page, but if their numbers are anything like Apple's (and they're likely much higher), then it's a tough life for them right now:

https://vester.si/ai-impact/appstore/

I made this bodily oddities page and posted it last week. The response has been great! I now have a very odd dataset on my hands of what people's bodies sometimes do.

What stood out from the submissions from readers was how many different things make people sneeze.

At the end of this post is a list of user-submitted reasons, and a few I added, I would love to see which apply to you, and you can submit more.

And thank you to everyone that gave feedback and suggestions, and voted on oddities. Keep it coming.

And to nip it in the bud, yes AI helped (is helping) with this.

If you're male (or want to dance as a leader), there are universally not enough of you to go around in partner dancing (with occasional exceptions), so any partner dance you pick you should be well received if you aren't a creep and just do the work to improve. Some of these dances are easier to get into than others. So your area might have salsa classes. Salsa is nice because it's easy to get into, but you can keep getting better at it forever. Bachata is similar but it's a bit more intimate in my view, so depends what you're after.

Some places just have "social dancing" classes, which is a different thing each week, but they might require you bring a partner, so look into it.

If you're from the US, or less commonly outside of the US, line dancing is a non-partner dance, so a group dance. One of my best friends does it and he loves it. Again don't need to be good to start.

Even if for most areas and most partner dances, there are less leaders than followers, this is not universally true. For instance in Turkey and Buenos Aires, there are many tourists of both sexes, while local women are culturally biased not to participate while local men are culturally biased to participate, hence creating a different gender balance.

Salsa is definitely not easy to get into, at least as lead. Salsa music itself is quite complicated for beginners and to keep time and lead moves all while having to improv on the spot. its a really tough partner dance imo. but the rewards are that much more satisfying once you get out of the beginners hell.

Why are there less leaders generally? That is not intuitive to me since it feels like men generally want to fill that role in any context. Are there just less male dancers?

To address all of the peer comments at the same time: I don't know.

There are places where men dancing is gay-ish and that deters them. That's an easy answer, but it's not enough because very progressive countries don't do much better on this, by my experience.

I would agree learning to follow in the very beginning can be easier, so that sounds like maybe men don't remain because their job is harder, but I wouldn't agree with this explanation because I observe fewer men showing up for beginner classes, when they don't know their job might is harder (whether or not it actually is).

Maybe men are more asocial on average? I'd be willing to believe that, especially in these times.

A comment above yours comments that this isn't true in Turkey, Buenos Aires, and I would add Paris to this list from experience, and then there's the entire continent of Africa we haven't mentioned and I can't really comment on, but what those places have in common is a cultural presence of dance, often a deep connection to dance where families dance together, maybe mom dances when she's cooking, dance isn't something you pick up as an exotic hobby, it's just that thing everyone does, and maybe you decide to do it a bit more than others.

Every culture with a lot of cultural dance presence would have a different view on this, I suspect.

Yes, there are generally fewer male dancers.

When the balance gets skewed too hard one way or another, lead/follow becomes less sex-discriminated. Which usually means that women lead too. But in the past few years it's become much more acceptable for men to follow as well, at least in some contexts.

My 2 cents on this question – it's easier to learn the follower part: you get some basics and then go to social dances events and practice with a good leaders. But to learn the leader part you can't just go to dance events and practice with good followers. It takes more deliberate practice in classes to get the leading part.

There are just fewer male dancers. I've gone to events with insane ratios either way (3x more leaders/followers) but it's rare. Usually there are more leaders at the beginner level and decreasing amounts as you go up (but more followers who can also lead to mitigate).

Every group thing where men play a big part alongside women or kids have a shortage of men. Men are simply way less social than women in today’s world.

I did not expect my weekend and week to be spent on the first page of HN, let me tell you.

I agree, and actually I put that asterisk there all that time ago when I wrote that article intending to put a footnote at the end, and clearly forgot. I meant to say that yes certainly people don't learn in the same way, but the thing I'm averse to is someone saying "I learn by seeing", and leaving it at that. It's simplistic, and I've found that individuals can also be wrong about their own opinion if their learning style.

The way I read some of the literature is that these may more often map to preferences, so the individual may prefer to see things, when learning, but it might not actually lead to more learning happening.

In dance I would yield that some people can repeat a movement just by seeing it, and others can't, but again I would say that's a learning style, I'd say there's a capacity inside them that is less strong/developed, translating movement seen to movement done. And it can be improved.

Several, but as the other comment pointed out, Urban Kiz is my main focus, as well as Tarraxo and Zouk.

That makes sense, thanks!

I've heard these fever dreams referred to as big-small as well. I believe it's the same phenomenon. For me it was pillars from high up above, where they're all the same width, but one is also much bigger at the same time. Hard to explain... Just an odd feeling.

And, anecdotally, I have gotten a similar feeling reaching deep enough meditation.

Generating those has been its own little project inside the project. Many iterations to go.

You've been great with clicking yes/no on the oddities, and providing more examples! I've already added some more, and refined some texts. I'll give it some more attention after I'm home again later today.

Thanks to everyone!