Akrasia?

Many women rarely, if ever, turn down dances at all, still less dances with friends.  Usually it is a sign of an inclination towards mechanical movement rather than a dance made of other things but maybe their curiosity just does a number on their judgement.  Sometimes we accept a guy when we have simply make a mistake about him. Or we accept them for the 'British reason':  many British women would rather have their fingernails plucked out than do anything so rude as turn down an invitation to dance, no matter how indiscreetly it is made.  To these women, the irrational British notion that prefers self-flagellation over potentially giving offence trumps the milonga code about discretion - if they are even aware of it.  The idea that the inviter may not have behaved in accordance with milonga codes in his method of invitation does not occur to them. 

I sat in a milonga with a girl friend recently.   She is a fun-loving, experienced and well-travelled dancer who looks for heart and soul in dance.  A group of foreign visitors walked in.
- Definitely, not him, I murmured, looking with my eyes.  God.  He's chewing gum, practically with his mouth open. 
- No, she agreed, with the shocked, persuasive tone of :  Of course not!

A traditional milonga is a civilized space.  How does someone who chews gum, anywhere, fit in a milonga?  But he wasn't a traditional man and our milonga is fairly casual too. Tradition aside, chomping gum in someone's ear while you dance with them - in what way could that ever be respectful?
I took my eyes off her for a minute.  When I looked round, there she was up partnered with the same guy.  She, the jaguar, he the used-car salesman.  He's going to treat her like some kitchen appliance, I thought.  

- So how was it? I asked, afterwards when he had thrown her about the floor as casually as he chewed his gum while she, impossibly, tried, with her still concentration, to find his soul.

- Too dramatic, she said, the scorn matching that with which he treated the women with whom he danced.

- Honestly, and you are Latin!  I thought you were supposed to be tough with guys! 

She didn't say it but I could just see her saying "But I like guys", winningly, batting her mascaraed eyelashes.  

- Yes, but not those guys! I had often said, in reality.

- No, she would agree, seriously, and soon after, dance with them.

- Remember that guy that walked up to us and stuck his hand out [to her] after you and I had just agreed to dance?  I had been so outraged I had stood up, towering over him and told him, frostily, to back off.  He was a crass man and an horrific dancer but she still accepted him afterwards.

I was puzzled. She talked like a Latin woman.  She had standards, was discriminate, had a sense of self-worth.  Or talked as if she had standards. But many women of all ages in Buenos Aires I had noticed just want some fun.  They are on a night out, they want to be up and dancing and why not?  Who is it that judges where another find their pleasure?  The odd thing was though, she often didn't enjoy the dances with guys she accepted and that we warned one another about; it is the akratic paradox:  acting against our better judgement. 

My friend grew up in a famously fun-loving country.  Her family, who was not from there, always told her to remember her upbringing and her standards. She however, hankered to sneak out and join the locals, hear the scary stories, do what wasn't allowed.  I remembered a lesson, long ago, from an older Italian girl friend, on how to to be, with men.  Was this idea of Latin women, tough on guys, a myth or wasn't it?  I decided to ask my milonga friend.  
- Why do you say you don't appreciate the types who walk up, who behave in those ways, but then accept them? 

- Because this is not my country, she said simply, surprisingly.  I am not at home, she said, meaning, she did not have the same self-assurance as she might in her own country.
- You were just telling me how you refuse more guys nowadays!  I did say.

- I know, she said, contritely.  She refused more of them now, because, she said, she felt more at home.

I was about to reply but she was already sitting, eyes averted, in the upright stance of a woman with a mission.  It was the same again.  She accepted guys who weren't great. But not, now, bottom feeders, just middle of the road guys.   They were, for her, new, so it was exciting, I guess, a discovery.