A group of friends of mine from San Francisco came to visit me in my apartment in San Francisco. They had been in Buenos Aires for about 2 weeks. They told me when they first came, they were dancing quite a bit, but now they were not dancing that much. They said it was happening to them in all of the milongas.
I was surprised. They are all fairly attractive women, and they all dance well. Well enough to be dancing a significant amount of the time. We continued to talk about the milongas when one of the women made the comment “I give them one song and then I leave the floor.” I was horrified. “You do what?” I said to her. They all looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. Another one of my friends patiently explained to me “I don’t want to waste my time dancing with someone who doesn’t know how to dance. So if he is not a good dancer I just leave the floor.”
I was shocked. Who the hell did these women think they were? In my very best Miss Christianson voice. (Miss Christianson was my 3rd grade Home Room teacher) I told them, “Here in Buenos Aires, you need to earn the right to walk off the floor. What you are doing is rude. No wonder no man wants to dance with you.” I explained to them that by walking off the floor and leaving the man standing there it was insulting. No man wants to be left on the floor by a woman. Everyone sees this. Because they were doing this routinely, the men in the milongas were not inviting them.
What was the response of the women? “Hey we are just dumb tourists.” Dumb tourists or not it is rude. When a man invites me to dance, I have accepted his invitation. If the man is not as good a dancer as I thought he would be, whose fault is that? Does this give me the right to insult him and walk off the floor? No it does not. How many men struggled through dances with me? Many in those first years, and they never left me on the floor. Not one of them.
There are exceptions. I have had men who were hurting me. Who were really bad dancers, where it was absolutely impossible to dance with them. It was obvious to anyone watching. In this case I very politely tell the man, I am sorry, but I really need to sit out the rest of the tanda. I usually dance 2 of the songs. Usually they know there is a problem.
The other exception is when you get a total jerk. This is a guy who tries to tell you how to dance, who is completely obnoxious. In this case, I simply tell them that I think they would be more comfortable dancing with someone of their own level. I thank them, and leave the floor.
In my situation, people know my level of dance. When I leave the floor, they want to know what happened. It is not a black mark against me. The men will continue to dance with me. I have earned the right to leave the floor.
There is never a substitute for good manners in any situation. Before you end that dance, think about how you might feel if you were the one who was going to be left standing in the middle of the floor.
I always tell the women who visit me; a tanda is maybe 12 minutes of your life. When you think of how long you are going to live, how important is that 12 minutes?
Beso,
Deby
® Deby Novitz 2008TangoSpam all rights
reserved. No parts of this may be
reproduced without permission of the author
Deby Novitz' blog can be found at
http://tangospam.typepad.c
Comments