‘Do you have to be the best in everything you do?’ Farm Boy asked me a couple of months ago on a trip along the Great Ocean Road with Sparkles.

‘What do you mean “have to be the best”? I know I am the best,’ I said in earnest, with just a hint of arrogance.

But tonight, I write with a bruised ego. I admit defeat; that I am not the best at everything, that I am rather appalling in certain arenas.

Choreographed dance, per example.

I know, for a fact, that I am the hottest little pocket rocket when it comes to free form dancing at clubs. I am the disco queen. My antics on the Gold Coast a couple of weeks ago provide ample evidence that I am the disco queen.

But choreographed dance such as salsa classes are my Achilles heel. I went to one tonight at the Copa Cabana with Ms Perfect. I was crap-o-la. Dog’s breakfast. I was no better than the class I went to for High School Rival’s wedding late last year. There was no lovely Emery to call me “muffins”, but there were plenty ugly balding men, most of whom were named “Adam”.

‘You’ve gotta loosen up. Bend your knees,’ said Adam #1, who refused to hold my hand.

‘Don’t lead. You follow. You follow?’ demanded Adam#2, who was my least favourite.

‘Stop trying to lead,’ explained Adam #3, a munchkin-sized man with bigger boobs than me.

‘You’re doing great, but I’m the one who leads, okay?’ said Adam #4, a gorgeous man/boy of unspecified extraction and undetermined age. He had an afro that I wanted to run my fingers through.

‘You’re the worst person I’ve ever danced with,’ said Adam #5, whose brutal honesty cut me into pieces. I could only take in comfort that I will always have better and more hair than him.

I watched with pure envy as Ms Perfect ignited the dance floor with her partner. She twisted, she turned, she loosened, she followed, without ever losing balance or forgetting the “one-two-three, four-five-six” beats. Oh, how I wished to have a body that twisted in such a way! Why, oh, why are there bones in my body??

Many Adams asked Ms Perfect to dance with them after the class finished and the real dancing began. I, the poor little wallflower, stood bravely near a wall until a tiny man (another Adam) asked me to salsa with him.

Tiny Adam was worse than me. He also did not make a good conversationalist.

‘It’s good music, this.’ He said, when we did the basic salsa steps.

I nodded.

‘It’s good music, this.’ He said again, when we cuccaracha’d.

I nodded again.

‘It’s very good music, this.’ He said, in a slightly different way. He had tried to spin me, only he found himself spinning around instead, ‘You know you’re not supposed to lead, right?’

High School Rival and Chubby Solicitor have been taking dance lessons in preparation for their wedding. On Monday night, they invited their close friends to waltz with them so that we do not look like an embarrassing bunch of Britney Spears impersonators in January.

A look of pure hatred and horror came over my face when I foxtrotted my way into the suburban dance studio. While I remembered to be in comfortable clothes and shoes, no one told me that the other essential accessory was a partner.

The three ladies and three gentlemen quickly latched onto each other. The lonely girl who had earlier fancied herself becoming the hottest dance sensation since Hugh Jackman was paired off with the dance instructor’s camp English husband.

“I will lend you my husband, Emery,” said the dance instructor with an impossibly small bum.

“Hullo there, muffins,” greeted Emery, in a pink silk shirt and tight black pants.

I fought the urge to take the dance instructor aside and relay to her Liza Minnelli’s romantic history.

Emery sang to Michael Bublè as we glided across the floor. Under his impeccable guidance, I was becoming quite competent. But I couldn’t stop staring at my feet.

“You know, I can’t keep my eyes off my feet,” I said.

Emery suddenly stopped. He led me to the side of the room and proceeded to examine my feet.

“Muffins, they are very interesting looking feet,” he declared. “Now, keep your eyes locked on my bluish grey eyes and you won’t worry a thing about making a mistake.”

I swapped partners with the Bridesmaid halfway through Fly Me to the Moon. Chubby Solicitor’s friend from the law firm, Bubble-O-Bill, was a massive ball of nervousness. He also had a habit of forming saliva bubbles around his mouth when he spoke.

Bubble-O-Bill did not have Emery’s grace and elegance. My interesting feet lost their rhythm. When came the time to do the fancy twirling bit, I spun out of control and slid ten feet across the dance floor on my knees.

Sensing my distress, Emery came back to be my partner again. But I no longer possessed my earlier brilliance.

“Muffins, what’s wrong with you? You were Ginger Rogers before. Now you’re stomping around like it’s a hoe-down,” said Emery with alarm.

“It’s Bubble-O-Bill,” I whispered. “He’s made me bad.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Muffins. It happens to the best of us,” Emery assured me. “I danced with my uncle Frank one wedding. Came out of that with bloodied toes and deepest sympathy for my poor aunt Vera.”