An earlier version of this post started off as a comment to Irene's post. It got longer and longer. That's when I decided to put it here. So I thank Irene for being the catalyst for me reopening The Outpost. She was also one of the people who wrote saying nice things during the time it was closed.
Irene said: "I still have to engage in conversation with ladies at beginning of the evening about willingness to dance later and THEN cabeceo to seal the deal later."
Usually, I just look. But if I am somewhere I don't know many people or if I'm not feeling confident I have engaged friends to help out: E.g. Would so and so would find out if A dances with women? I owe a lot of favours. Sometimes, a guy will dance first and let me know the lie of the land. I was feeling fragile at a milonga recently. I asked a guy I've known for years to find out about a girl he hadn't danced with yet: what was she like and might she dance with girls - the subtext: potentially me. We both wanted to dance with her. He has good reason to think I am perfectly able to do my own invitation but I just haven't been up to it much lately. Since we hadn't seen one another in quite a while, he didn't know this. So he said no! He gave me a talking to about my perfectly competent invitation abilities. I did try. She didn't accept! I felt silently battered. Like after trying snowboarding earlier this year.
If I do engage a bit of help, I'm pretty sure that way the word will somehow, eventually get to the girl even if not directly and we can look out for one another - or not. Sometimes just the knowledge that someone may have put out a word is enough. Often, just having someone on your side in a milonga is all you need - as guy or girl. I remember my mum saying that about school recently. Sometimes all you need is one or two good friends to get you through.
Sometimes I invite (verbally) a woman sitting next to me. I think it can be a bit absurd to try and invite someone so close by look. I remember chatting to a guy I know well who was standing next to me at Eton. He walked to the other side of the room to invite me. When I accepted and asked him why he hadn't just asked me while we were chatting he grinned and shrugged and said ruefully: "This is what we do". Contrarily, I don't mind when guys invite by look if they are at quite close quarters - depending on how it's done. Not, of course, if it's pushy but these days I find few guys are like that. Perhaps they get a vibe.
I will only invite the person next to me verbally if the music is too good for conversation and they seem nice. I can't bear talking through irresistible music. Actually, I can't do it. I've dragged up all kinds of people to dance rather than chat through it. It has seemed the easiest or perhaps the only option at the time. I find it frustrating to miss good tandas through a lack of compatible partners. I'd usually leave instead.
If I am somewhere where I don't know anyone I've found it can be harder to invite girls. Sometimes they don't know you dance both roles although the alert ones often do These are the ones I want anyway. I still manage usually. Sometimes I start with women who swap, sometimes not. It depends on the culture too, and the town. In Andalucía I invited local women very little. The men at that particular weekend event were (for me) better than average dancers though and that's where I was looking most of the time. Valencia, in contrast, has quite a culture of swapping roles, even with guys. Once I've danced with someone who turns out to be compatible sometimes I will ask for recommendations, especially if they dance both roles. I remember this working well in Copenhagen last December. Again, I find word seems to get around that A may be keen to dance with B. If I am somewhere busy for just a few nights I've found this can help.
I seem to have asymmetric rules around invitation depending on the role I'm in. I can't excuse it. I just put it down to the roles and to men and women being different. If I am in the woman's role I may not accept a guy I would like to dance with - even though these are rare finds! - because I want (say) the right music. But I don't expect him to write me off because of that. I hope he will invite a different time. I expect a lot of patience from guys! Needless to say the gaps between my dances with guys are long. Usually weeks long. Often months long.
Yet when I'm in the guy's role, if a woman doesn't accept me when I look, I won't trouble her again unless she herself then seeks me out some other time. And then I might or might not dance depending on the circumstances e.g music. I remember Janis writing about this (I think in a comment on Tango Chamuyo), that if a woman did not accept a guy he was unlikely to bother her again. I thought at the time how harsh the guys must be. Also, that this was not always my experience in Argentina. More often though it was. I don't think it harsh these days because I have felt it myself.
But thus, at least in UK, perhaps also in Buenos Aires, do the milongas lead to much silent second-guessing, perceived slights and complicated reasons why C doesn't dance with D and no-one can remember why. I suspect this is one reason why a lot of people love to dance away. It's a fresh slate.
I admit I suffer from as much pride as (perhaps) the average male Argentinian. At least, I don't find as many British guys with as many qualms.
I'm chary about looking sideways in the woman's role. For me, it looks, or feels too ....keen?! I admit this may not be entirely rational. It depends how relaxed I'm feeling too. It could be a reaction to seeing too many women craning their necks even contorting their torsos to beg a dance. I remember this striking with the force of revelation at the first Bristol encuentro in 2014:
I hate seeing women who don't fancy their chances turn their heads around to look behind them or straining & craning to see who's left. It's sad & undignified. There was one middle aged Italian woman visitor like that, badly seated (next to me) as a place to cabaceo. It was great to watch the floor but to cabaceo you have to basically turn around in your seat. I heard her mutter "Finalmente" as she was among the dregs to be led to the floor.
I don't tend to get up from my seat to get a better vantage point to invite (in the guy role) though I might go to the bar/kitchen and remain open to opportunities arising. If the seating is too far from the dancer I want to invite, or it's ill laid-out or the lighting is too dark to see, or the people stand on the floor between tandas and block the line of sight then I feel it isn't such a great milonga anyway and therefore not one worth getting disappointed about. In this light, what happens in the milongas is a very long game. I've found that if the moment isn't right, it might be next week/month/ year/in a few years / in a different milonga.
I remember in an Eton milonga speaking to a woman about this not moving from one's place to invite or be invited. I had seen her husband. He was a swarthy, scary looking Argentinian, the kind who, in the milongas decades ago you could imagine getting into a knife fight over...anything. I probably misjudge him though it's true I later saw him in the ronda with practically a raised fist above a cowering smaller man in front of him. It transpired the little man hadn't been moving quickly enough in the ronda, which at the time had been so jam-packed and the DJ nevertheless intent on cranking up the tempo I myself had decided to sit out. But the Argentinian I noticed didn't invite much. Certainly he never moved from his seat. His wife said no, he never would. It wasn't the Argentinian way. Apart from going out to smoke or perhaps to the bar, I found that largely true of men in the traditional milongas in Buenos Aires.
For invitation, the choice of seat is important to me: a centre seat with a good view of most people and opposite the speakers. I would prefer it if guys and girls were opposite each other - for ease of looking - provided I could have a seat on each side!
