HURRAH, Strictly Come Dancing is back! To celebrate, I am considering placing the following advert in the personal ads: "Wanted: Tall male dancing partner (preferably gay, definitely non-smoker) to rumba with during school hours. SOH essential."

The gay thing isn't my idea, lest you think I'm being discriminatory. It is the husband's. He won't dance with me - apart from once, after which he told me what I could do with my foxtrot - but he's not keen on my dancing with anyone else, either.

To stop him coming on all alpha male, I am going along with this. After Julian Clary's sizzling samba in the last series I had high hopes that a gay friend of ours might be interested. Since he sends me a single large courgette from his allotment every year - this year it was a marrow - I thought we had something going, but it seems not. He said he'd rather chew his right arm off than come dancing, or words to that effect.

What is it with guys? Don't they realise how cool dancing is? I don't care if my dancing partner is gay or straight or an alien from the planet Zog, so long as he can whisk me round the dance floor. But it must be a he. Doing the tango with a girl is just too weird, especially when you get to all the leg-locking stuff. Waltzing chest-to-chest, especially with a double D cup, is outside my comfort zone, even if it would make my husband happy.

Here's the problem: girls like to dance. Men don't. I'm generalising, obviously: some men do dance without the prior consumption of large quantities of alcohol and they can even do more than moshing. The trouble is, there aren't enough of them to go round.

It's a confidence thing, I'm told. Men don't like to be shown up trying to do something, especially if they're not very good at it. More specifically, they find it hard to laugh at themselves when they mess up. Gee, lighten up, guys! Look at the plus points: dancing is actually very macho. You get to steer a woman around without an argument (women must always follow). It keeps you fit without going to the gym. And your pulling potential goes up exponentially.

You don't have to look like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, either: Aled Jones went from chubby ex-choir boy to streamlined sex god in the last series of Strictly Come Dancing, while gardening expert Diarmuid Gavin became a national hero for the sheer bravery of his pasa doble, even though the judges told him he danced as if he was shaking mud off his boots.

Both male celebrities said how much they had grown to love the sport - and it is a sport, albeit a dressy one. Rugby player Martin Offiah and athlete Roger Black found it as challenging as the training they have to do for their own events, although you don't have to aim for that level. The sequinny stuff is only for the dedicated; above all, dancing is about having a good time.

It's definitely a recipe for good health. My mother-in-law, who is 72, goes dancing regularly with her boyfriend of 84, although these days it's more hip-op than hip-hop. They grew up doing the jitterbug and swing at a time when partner dancing was the norm, something our generation, with its solo disco dancing, has missed out on, and she can still manage a natty jive.

People lack confidence about dancing because they haven't been taught it. Joel Chapman, who runs the Rock Academy of Dance in York, is convinced that dance classes for young people are beneficial; he's been working with the children in our school, who at seven and eight have no qualms about joining in. As a result, my tomboy daughter has become a fan of latin and shimmies around in sparkly silver sandals doing the cha-cha-cha annoyingly better than me.

Overall, there has been an improvement in the York dance scene in the past few years, especially in salsa, which, being a "street" dance and more obviously social, tends to be more inclusive. Salsa-York, which runs classes for all levels at Holgate WMC, packs them in on Tuesday nights while Encuentro Latino, which teaches more stylised New York salsa, sometimes has to turn people away (not men) so popular are its Monday nights at Orgasmic.

If you are inspired by celebrities Zoe Ball, Patsy Palmer, Colin Jackson and (heaven help us) Dennis Taylor going through their paces in tonight's programme, the BBC's website has details of local dance schools and teachers. Don't be shy. No-one is expecting you to be Fred Astaire. Just don't eat garlic beforehand. It doesn't go down well when you're dancing cheek to cheek.

Updated: 16:00 Friday, October 14, 2005