Smiles

He looked more than once but did not invite. 

That was before I learnt that looking isn't always enough. But what a risk a smile is. What a vulnerable-making thing. The girl's smile is not an invitation but it is a clear signal. If it precedes invitation it is the initiation of things to come. 

Things you do mean things in the milonga, especially in the cortina.  If a girl simply looks at a guy at that time, she may be saying:  "If the music is right, I might dance" or even "I will dance regardless of what the music is".  

If I see a smile from a girl to me, who dances both roles, even if - especially if? - the smile is small, and slow I feel quite thrilled. 

 But some guys need more reassurance than a look and, despite decades of experience, through nerves, I don't tend to give the ones I like much encouragement.  

You have to be more pragmatic, the woman I didn't trust at all used to say at work, when I fought the corner for the customer. But if they trust us, they'll stay with us I would want to say. But the wham bam fast buck method seemed to be more the company's angle, or at least, her angle.

So if a guy looks, looks again and keeps looking off and on, in that milonga but doesn't invite and you're curious, what do you do? Smile, encouragingly? Yet who would want a dance that began with one partner patronising the other? 

But unquestionably,  the dance does start with a look, even if you don't dance right then. Even if you don't dance until days, weeks or months later. These things can't be forced with smiles you don't feel.  Either it happens somehow by itself, or it doesn't.  

There are smiles in the milonga all the time.  Some are flirtatious, a few are coy, some are so faint you wonder how it is she seems so desirable.  Some are matter-of-fact.  Some are efficient and businesslike.  One or two seem to contain so little of anticipated pleasure that you wonder why they dance at all.  These are the kind that start, mortifyingly for the poor guy. with a "Well, alright..." kind of look.  

I see many smiles from women that are like invitations.  On my third night in Buenos Aires, in Gricel there was a friendly blonde like that at my table.  It worked for her.  She danced all night.  Another woman seemed to disapprove finding it flashy, vulgar, inappropriate.  You have to smile at them the blonde said, kindly in castellano.  But I was tense as a coiled spring by then and could barely look to one side or the other.  She asked who I liked.  I told her.  She made to fix up the dance for me in warm Argentinian fashion but I stopped her, worried in too many respects.

Some women can pull off the 'come hither' look.  Many would consider it the way of the world.  I thought she was fun and it was plain she did consider it such.  But it is the way of the world for some.  Sometimes it can be rather too much all in the shop window for me.  And it can be catching.  I have seen whole milongas like this.  Exaggerated by a girl, it is like being stalked.  It's also troubling because if the guy looks away I feel so for the woman and can't help thinking:  it isn't the way things have to be.  It is so avoidable.

Women, especially older women initiating things very overtly without actually asking can, inside the milonga, lead either to them seeming scary or sad.  Then again it can lead to women getting the dance they want, on their own "Shall we?" terms and personally I don't like to dance with most guys who dance on those terms.  I like seeing women who are smarter and more subtle than that.