[Tango-L] Buenos Aires Mystery

[RoseHolly@aol.com]

Hi everybody, this is my first post, though I've been reading the list  for 
several months. I've really enjoyed the wealth of information and experience  
here...as well as all the drama surrounding it! 
I'm a relative newbie (dancing for about 1 ½ years) and recently returned  
from my first trip to Buenos  Aires. I had a wonderful time, but one thing 
happened  that mystified me, and I'm hoping you can shed some light. 
I had been to a few milongas in town already, danced my little heart out,  
and found everything to more or less fit my expectations. Then one night, I went 
 to Salon Canning. I was with a friend I had met in Buenos Aires, not a local 
but  a Mexican man who spends a month of every year there working on his  
technique, knows a lot of people and is a very good dancer. 
My friend had reserved a table, and we were seated at the outer edge,  next 
to an adorable local couple who'd been married over 50 years and had gone  
there to hear a little music. It was around midnight, and the live music hadn't  
started yet. The floor was fairly full but not crowded yet. My friend went to  
change his shoes and pay his respects to various important people, and other  
than chatting with the nice older couple, I was careful not to make eye 
contact  with anybody. It was my first time there, I didn't know the crowd or the 
floor,  and I wanted my first tanda to be with my friend. 
This is where the mystery began. Within a few minutes of my friend  leaving 
me at our table, a man tapped me on my shoulder, from behind. When I  looked 
around he asked me to dance. I was quite taken aback and explained  
apologetically (in my bad Spanish) that I was saving my first dance for the  gentleman I 
had arrived with, at which point this man fell all over himself  apologizing 
for having asked. In the 10 minutes my friend was gone, this  happened twice 
more, each time being tapped from behind and verbally invited to  dance, and each 
time the man was extremely apologetic, even mortified, when I  declined 
(always by explaining I was saving the first dance for my gentleman  friend). What 
gives? 
I would be tempted to write them off as clueless Americans, but they  didn't 
appear to be such, which is to say, they were all quite charming and  
reserved, well groomed, wearing nice suits, and native Spanish speakers. (No  offense 
intended to my fellow clueless Americans, but I hope you know what I  mean, 
and of course you are not all clueless.) One of them used the word “sorry”  in 
English but beyond that it was all Porteno-accented Spanish (as far as my  
untrained ear could distinguish). 
As I had just arrived, these men had no way of knowing whether I could  dance 
my way out of a paper bag. Is it possible there were some other women  there 
that these men were hoping to impress, so they were going to take any old  
newcomer (me) for a spin just so they could display their wares and move on to  
the women they wanted to win dances with? 
Up to this point (at the other milongas I'd already visited in town) I'd  
been quite charmed by the cabeceo, and felt a little thrill every time I got the  
nod. But this was something else entirely, and sort of put me on edge. What 
is  the proper response (if there is one) when such a thing happens? I'd hate 
to  step on anyone’s toes (so to speak) but I also don't want to perpetuate bad 
 manners.  
Did they have bad manners? Did I have bad manners? Is it assumed that  this 
is how one must ask foreigners (me) to dance, who might not know the  customs? 
Even if that is the case, why would they want to dance with someone  who'd 
just arrived (me), who might turn out to be a menace on the dance  floor?  I 
tried to discuss it with  my kindly table neighbors, but either my Spanish was 
insufficient or they did  not consider it worthy of comment, as they just rolled 
their eyes and waved  their hands. 
I hope it will be found worthy of comment here, maybe with a little eye  
rolling and hand waving thrown in for excitement. Many thanks. 
Holly Rose, Berkeley



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