[Tango-L] Surplus Tanguera - Not

[Valerie Dark]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Brick Robbins <brick at fastpack.com> wrote:
> Sometimes the cortinas take on appearance of a feeding frenzy, with 3
> or 4 men standing around each of the better followers, with the
> follower begging for the chance to rest. I once found a follower
> sitting  behind the counter in the kitchen, hiding. She said she just
> wanted to rest a bit without having to turn down someone every 30
> seconds.

That's an interesting observation. I have seen the same thing with my
own eyes, but with the genders reversed.

My boyfriend is a fine dancer. He and I like to dance together and we
do it a lot, but when we separate to find other partners, the women
simply hound him. He finds it difficult to turn them down. He finds it
hard-hearted, so he ends up dancing with a lot of women he doesn't
even want to dance with. It's hard for him to find the chance to dance
with the partners he likes because he's "servicing" so many. Often, he
still declines invitations because he has already promised two or
three others in succession. Sometimes the ones he turns down glower
and glare at him the rest of the night. Several no longer speak to him
(or me).

I ask you, is this seemly behavior towards a man in a partnered
relationship? I don't want him to have any sense of obligation about
me, but if he has a duty to anyone, who moreso than me? Don't you
think it's presumptuous for other women to expect so much from a man
involved with someone else?

He doesn't feel complimented by all the attention. These women are
making demands of him. They feel as if they've paid their money to get
in and to have a decent dance; somehow it's his duty to provide what
they paid for. They often tell him, with pride in their voices, that
they are independent and aggressive women who have no fear about
extending invitations to men. I wonder how they expect him to respond,
with admiring approval? (Incidentally, they all adore me. Or they seem
to anyway, because they never fail to sit near me and chat me up while
expecting him to return soon.)

He tells me he doesn't even want to dance every single tanda in a
night. There's so much pressure to meet everyone's expectations, the
evenings are far from relaxing. They're hideous. God forbid that he
stop for a second to have a drink. The vultures circle around the
semi-still form, "I see you're not busy?..."

So, get this. He won't even come with me to milongas anymore. I don't
even get to dance with him myself except at home or when we go to
private parties.

Sisters, you are ruining my life!

The only milongas he'll attend with me are in Buenos Aires. I'm
counting the minutes until our next trip. He won't go to a milonga
unless there are reserved seats and nobody approaches your table to
ask you to dance. It's the only way he gets some peace and quiet and
dances just with people he likes.

I wish there were reserved seating milongas north of the equator. We
would pay double the going entrada. But there aren't any.

Val
-- 
Cryptic Ember - The tango blog of Valerie Dark
http://crypticember.blogspot.com