When Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson sang The Best Things In Life Are Free, the worldly and sophisticated woman I am today knows that they’re sniggering about sex.

But as an awkward 12-year-old, recently returned to my hometown of Belfast after seven years in Singapore, I thought it was all about dancing. This was the tune that was playing over the crackly speakers in Olympia Leisure Centre’s function room, where one of my new classmates was having her birthday party, and an invitation to the weird new girl had been extended by her mum at the last minute.

As I danced, next to a trestle table bearing a bowl of crisps and a tray of mini sausages, proudly wearing my new turquoise Fruit of the Loom sweatshirt and Levi 501s, I finally felt happy here, in this new city, with these new, intimidating school friends. Dancing made me feel like I belonged. Dancing with my new potential friends was a hell of a lot easier than talking to my new potential friends; I was entirely lacking in common cultural reference points, clueless about everything from Take That to Hollyoaks. Dancing with them was also easier than playing sport with them at school; when I picked up a hockey stick for the first time, I thought the club was a handle. But dancing with them - to Boyzone, Blur and Bon Jovi - I could do. Dancing didn’t get lost in translation. It was the same on both sides of the planet.

“Why dancing is the best form of therapy”