How they see us

I found this in a family album recently and photographed it to show my son, who can occasionally have the same look when under duress.

Do we know how we look to others? Sometimes you get an inkling but it is different when you hear things directly. 

Maybe, travelling alone, determined, despite unknown floors and unknown dancers, not to return home with an aggravated knee injury I had been defensive and looked it at Tango Train because not two days earlier a man had said something similar to the Resting Bitch Face remark.

Do we in general trust what people of the same sex tell us more than what the opposite sex say? I have been taken aback by Dutch directness several times. When I heard what I did at the TangoTerras milonga at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam I was not sure if the directness of it was just the Dutch way or a soft sort of punishment for not accepting the guy earlier that day or a genuine attempt at being helpful. Probably the latter. Still, that sort of 'feedback' from a stranger, mid-embrace, mid-dance is likely going to foreclose any genuine dance feeling between you or any attempt to get lost in a tango dance embrace. But actually, if you are having to try, clearly it isn’t just happening naturally. Dance communicates feeling and is not usually expressed in words.

The music and conditions of that milonga, especially the floor surface were far from ideal for me so I was particularly cautious. I saw a man with a kind face I recognised from the El Cielo milonga either that afternoon or from other afternoons that week. A short time later we were introduced by a mutual friend. The man seemed open, gentle, polite, attentive, respectful. I liked him. A little after that, he invited me by look. I accepted, a bit hesitantly because, well, do we always know why we accept? Because it was great D'Arienzo just then, because I was curious and precisely because that mutual friend had just introduced us and was still there. I thought I should at least tell him about the knee which has been holding out well - but then I had accepted very few guys that week. If guys don't turn out to be light and gentle dancing then one track can cause the damage.  It is often only then you have an opportunity to explain why you are resisting or avoiding pivots and as a knock on effect, why you are obviously tense. So sometimes I mention I have a knee problem up front.  He was very careful. 

I think he must have already spoken because I almost never initiate any chat during the dance but found myself thinking aloud: It is a shame that we did not dance this afternoon. I meant that the floor - the conditions generally - had been much better earlier and so I might have pivoted with less worry which might then have meant we both relaxed. Oh! he said. But I walked past to see if you were interested yet you gave me such a look as to say very clearly: “Don’t even think about it”. He mimed a mock version of just such a look. I stared, frozen in surprise, probably re-enacting the very same look as that I was charged with. He in turn arranged his features to an expression that was mock-quailing and understandable in anyone on the receiving end of such a fearsome thing as he plausibly had been - or perhaps in someone having second thoughts about raising such a subject on the dance floor.

I hope I looked apologetic. It was true, I had not looked to dance with him. I could remember the guys I had been looking for. It is also true that my for the most part fairly unconscious look can fend off anyone who appears insistent or who looks like they might be. Oh!, I said, aghast, suddenly aware that a look conveys more of my inner state than I realise - or at least, conveys it with more strength. 

And yet I was reminded of a girl friend who had whispered, helpfully after I endured a hellish dance from a handsome, happy guy at the Edinburgh International Tango Festival last year: You need to hide what you feel! 

- I know! I said. It was just…

We were just not compatible is all.  I had felt guilty and embarrassed during that dance and afterwards and, knowing I can be hopeless at dissembling some emotion had thereafter been even more careful about which guys I accepted, which is a good thing. 

In Amsterdam, the Dutchman, seeing my confusion said kindly: I don't mean to cause any bad feeling, It is just...feedback, you know.