"A man is generally what he feels himself to be."

There is an exchange in Sam Peckinpah's hellish film, Cross of Iron between Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) and Sergeant Steiner played by James Coburn, who manages to pull of laconic, careful, disillusioned and dangerous all in a look or a word.

Stransky: May I suggest to you that you do not underestimate your present company. Everything you are and may become is dependent upon this present company.

Steiner: No, I will not forget that, sir. But I may add that a man is generally what he feels himself to be. 

This, said to the visible discomfort of the people around him.

I like people who are themselves and not what they think they ought to be or what someone else tells them they should be like.

I look for a musical connection with a real person.   I like people who dance the music simply and without ostentation, who feel the music, not who think the dance.  These (for me) "real" dances can come from the most unexpected quarters, not least because they are often so unobtrusive.

I appreciate nice clothes or someone who smells lovely but these things aren't essential, even less so with people I know.  I dance with the guy with unruly hair I have to push away because he has a great embrace, with the girl who dresses quietly because it suits her and no-one else dances like her, with the guy whose stubble burns my cheek if we dance more than a tanda because he's fun and original and still the right side of respectful.

I like to dance with people who are light-hearted, who smile and who look as though they are enjoying the dance.  Perhaps playful people dancing in the guy's role bring more equality to the dance. If that's true maybe it’s because there's more opportunity to respond.  I like people who share their personalities in the dance. I don't know that you can see so easily whether people do that especially because they are often small and discreet in their movements.  The milonga is a visual place, superficially but necessarily.  After that it's about what you feel.

When I am in the embrace I like to know whose embrace. If you were to put me into someone's arms with my eyes closed I would like to be able to tell who it is right from the start in the many ways that you do know.

Before I danced the other role, back when I assumed along with most everyone else that classes were the way to learn to dance tango, I must have been complaining to a friend about not wanting to be being pulled into the embrace by a guy in class or about how the teacher encouraged me to really embrace a guy I didn't want to.  My friend, sympathising, said how awful it must be to embrace someone you don't really want to and that luckily few women were so obnoxious that guys did not want to dance with them in the embrace. Now I find it to be true! Most women I invite I find are lovely to dance with. I do not find this true in quite the same way with all guys. I love to dance with women who are relaxed,  unafraid, who love the connection and who I can feel responding to the music.

Sometimes young guys are as inclined to propel you around as to embrace you. But not always.  I think  sometimes that just comes with time in life and in the milongas.

I like to dance with guys with a great embrace, a place I like to be, where I feel relaxed and happy and where I can trust him not to do unpleasant things. I think I most like to be in the embrace of a guy who I can feel has experienced life and is relaxed and at peace with himself, self assured, quiet, understated, sensitive to the music and to his partner.  I like to feel in a guy's embrace and his dance, looked after, cared for.