"Can't really say "no" to a "friend", can you?"

This question appears on a recent post on Irene and Man Yung's blog, a fun site I keep up with about dancing traditional tango.  I love how she (we think) writes the posts but Man Yung gets half the credit. 

Whether to accept a dance one doesn't want from a friend is a dilemma I am sure most of us have come up against.

In her post Irene does eventually turn down the friend because she felt he was disrespectful in practising his new moves on her instead of dancing with her.  Perhaps less of a friend now then?  Or temporarily less of a friend maybe.  

I feel these things depend on the elasticity of the friendship.  When a friendship reaches a point where two people can or no longer want to adjust, adapt to, accommodate one another, when it just becomes more effort than the friendship is worth, it will necessarily come to an end.  It is just how it is.

I turned down a friend recently.  I just didn't want to dance much anyway and I prefer this friend, who I hadn't seen for a long time, as they took up new interests, as a friend more than as a dancer.  They make me laugh and who doesn't want a friend who can do that? Perhaps they were a bit hurt, especially as I danced a tanda with a friend who had made me laugh a lot that night and who is the person I have danced with for longest in one of the local milongas.  I'd like to stay friends but not at the price of dancing when I don't feel like it.  A friend who would expect you to dance when you don't want to would be a contradiction of the term.  So we'll see.

Sometimes, of course, you just forget what someone is like to dance with and much time can go by without dancing together.  That can seem like a snub but often it not.  In Buenos Aires I was struck more than once when local women said:  Oh he didn't dance with me for years but then one day, he did again.  The scale of everything was bigger there.

I have discovered that when my desire to dance with someone I used to like dancing with is no longer there it is either because I like them less as a dancer or less as a person; or I perhaps trust them less, which may or may not be temporary, depending on what happens next.   If you like them as a dancer then you have at least, not lost a friend.  If you like them less as a friend then the friend was probably already lost and the lack of desire to dance with them is at least a pointer to this fact, if not a confirmation of it.  I met a simply lovely guy at the queer milonga yesterday afternoon.  We chatted about all sorts of things.  It was a relief in a way, that he doesn't dance.  It removes that complication.  We didn't exchange contact details.  It was just an enjoyable afternoon encounter which probably won't happen again, but how nice if it does.  

Friends are people you meet and keep regardless of whether or not you dance.