WHEN I was a teenager, the high point of my social calendar was to slip on a pair of jeans and head off to the school disco. Now that I am considerably older, the high point of my social calendar seems depressingly familiar, because it still involves slipping on a pair of jeans (and contrary to what my wife may say, they are not the same pair) and heading off to the family disco at the primary school.

And it's true, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Because what starts out with such hope and promise, always seems to end with me feeling thoroughly demoralised. And for the same reason.

This is because my children, just like those adolescent girls back in the days of yore, have all figured out how pathetically desperate I am to dance. Though unlike those girls, my children have learned how to exploit this weakness.

Now I realise that being a man, I'm not supposed to enjoy dancing. That I'm supposed to lurk in the shadows with all the other fathers and purposely avoid making eye-contact with my children, while grumbling that real men don't dance because they can't dance. It's just not programmed into the Y-chromo-some.

Sure we can jump up and down with our two left feet. But the only reason we would even think about doing it, is because we know it is an important part of the female mating ritual.

But hey, now that we have wives and children, we can sit the next one out because our lottery number has already come up in the gene-pool. Moreover, our little prizes are out there on the dance floor grinding away to the techno-beat.

The only two exceptions are supposed to be homosexuals and blacks.

And because I absolutely love dancing, this can only mean one thing... that I somehow have a small residue of black blood in my veins. Not much mind you, but enough to make my body automatically start moving in rhythm as soon as the volume is cranked up.

I can't really control it. Heck, I don't want to control it. I just want to get out there and boogie.

Unfortunately, my children have realised that I have this terrible weakness and they have used their cunning little brains to figure out how to profit from it.

They do what those girls did so long ago and simply pretend that they don't want to be the envy of their friends by dancing with me.

They make it seem as if it is a real burden and an unbearable chore, until I'm forced to lower my otherwise impeccable standards and do something I couldn't do all those years ago, and resort to bribery.

AT first they make it seem reasonable enough - starting out as low as ten or 20 pence for a dance. But as the night wears on and the alcohol from the cash bar starts flowing into my brain, they slowly turn into masterful actors. Ones who appear absolutely convincing when they tell me that there is no way in the world they want to be seen dancing with their weird Daddy anymore.

It's just way too uncool.

But they're simply conning me and I can prove it.

Because if this were really true, if they really thought that I was making such a fool of myself, then why would they suddenly change their mind when I up the price to a pound or two?

Unless... unless... they're right. And if this is true, then (gulp) I'm actually teaching them that it is perfectly acceptable to dance with older men for money.

And the worst part is, not only have I been teaching this lesson to my daughters, but (double gulp) I've also being teaching it to my only son.

And he doesn't charge nearly as much.