"What's wrong with me?"

I scoffed at the worried self: Too insecure, that's the main problem -  get yourself in order. A less abrupt, gentler talking-to might have worked: You’re just tired.  But unless I took the tough line I sensed I might cave in and stay in.

Those fears are far from unique. I know - not all - but many women can and do feel these things. I know because sometimes they say.  I heard a woman I know say it this last weekend at the Edinburgh International Tango Festival. The worry we have when we do not dance  came up: What’s wrong with me? but in jokes and laughter.   In so doing I realised we know it is a common condition shared by many of us, but redundant because we also know in all likelihood nothing is wrong with us.  In the vast majority of cases women get dances for common reasons such as being younger, slimmer or more known.  They may be very well presented, better dancers or they may accept anyone to use them to "get seen". They may appear popular and be seldom off the floor by accepting all comers.  They may prostitute themselves to get dances in ways we might not care for.   And they are not necessarily better dancers.  I can think of at least five women I danced with at the festival who were all very likely older than me and who were all an absolute pleasure to dance with, far better than many, probably most younger women I dance with.  I asked a visitor sitting next to me how she had found the Festival.  She looked extremely capable at getting what she wanted. She seemed youngish, attractive I would have thought to men but gave an open, helpless shrug that said, I know it isn't personal when they don't choose you, but what can you do? The second clause of her reply demonstrated her experience:  "I can't get the guys I want who also want to dance with me." She knew it has to be a mutual thing.

Before we become thus familiar and therefore competent at managing these feelings, the birth of this acknowledgement is not always so easy. With some women, frequently new dancers, it comes out quietly almost in - needless - shame or even occasionally on the brink of tears or in their confession after private tears. Often it is not just difficult conditions or being unknown or general insecurity at, say, that moment but in response to ways they have been treated by partners on the floor or in invitation. I cannot say how much my heart goes out to them because I have known how they feel for all those reasons. We talk about and laugh at our common fears and try to have perspective on them. But more often we feel alone in them. We feel they are not representative of our ordinary selves so are worth no attention. We try to dismiss the fears but, undealt with they linger oddly, like the predatory guys who can't dance but who prowl the floor gazing down creepily and far too close at the seated women, blocking our view and who ought to be dealt with by any self-respecting organiser. 

We may feel we have worked so hard “at tango” [sic]. We have paid and travelled and practised and thought endlessly about our dance. But we give little thought to how we feel and what to do with ourselves when things do not go to plan or when we worry they might not or when the conditions are not conducive to our being at ease. With all that "tango training" how could things not go to plan? That is, for instance, the plan of dancing well and often with the people we seek. Yet for various reasons and especially when we are new or do not know people that is just what can and does happen.

September 2014, at an encuentro.

A: I have realised my problem. If I am not in the right frame of mind, which is to say relaxed, I am hopeless at cabeceo with people I don't know & haven't spoken to.

B: That's normal. The problem goes when one becomes better at a) relaxing and b) avoiding the kind of event that traps you into dancing when you're not in the right frame of mind, esp. tango camps, inc. encuentros.

How to get through this at any kind of milonga? I still have this angst and claim no expertise. One way of course is not to go to milongas you do not know alone but to go with friends.  Though I have tended to strike out a lot on my own and now do know people and milongas in Scotland, England and further afield, I cannot claim it has been easy.  Most of the time it was not though there were rewards.

Another option is to leave a milonga not long after you sense the doubts start to creep in from the shadows.  I know resourceful and self-reliant women who if they are not having a good time will do exactly that and I suspect more of us probably should.  I mentioned to someone recently this issue of going to an encuentro and feeling trapped there. They gave a nice example of someone who does go to them, but lightly: she goes for an hour and if she isn't having a good time, she leaves. She uses the spa in her hotel, does some sightseeing and finds other ways to enjoy herself. It strikes me as very good sense. 

But if you are still not sure if it is you or it (the conditions) or them (the crowd) the doubts can nag. I think susceptibility to these things is partly down to temperament. Experience helps, patience, losing self-consciousness, finding other things to distract you like listening to the music watching the dancing especially the fun interactions between couples or better still, for me, and if I can get it, good, relaxing, distracting conversation.  And from within that I often find a sort of wordless understanding, a kindness and empathy in others that is hard to beat.  It is an unpatronising, non-judgemental, reassuring solidarity which, if it endures after a while we call friendship. 

Doubt and kindness

It was two flights and over eight hours of travel from Perth to my hotel in Stuttgart for the milonga weekend in Tango Loft. I had slept poorly and arrived tired with a growling headache that had developed during the afternoon. With little opportunity to rest before the dance the worries surfaced easily as I got ready to go out: What was I doing here?

Was I going to be too unknown? I thought of Cambridge where on the Friday night my best dances had been with three guys I already knew. 

Was I too old ? I thought of Berlin where the good scene was mostly young, where I found out later a friend had been told by a regular dancer there that it is hard to break in there. Then I thought of the vivacious women bailarines I had seen in Buenos Aires, older than me by thirty years or more, popular for dance, looking fantastic.

Was I experienced enough? The advert had said the event was suitable for “experienced dancers”. Four years is not that experienced. But I had seen often that time can mean little in dance. What did this particular place mean by experience anyway? Taking classes? Doing as you are told? Practising “women’s technique” in a way I once heard described unforgettably as playing with herself? No particular slur intended to this woman.  I could have picked any of the splurge of these on YouTube. Did they mean experienced in looking the part, playing the games? Or experienced simply in response to different partners on the floor, to tango music you both know and love? 

Was my dance too poor? I remembered many lovely things men and women have said over time and recently and an evening of marvellous tanda after tanda at a milonga with a friend visiting from France not long ago - dance as it can be. I might feel stiff and out of practice but even so I did not think my dance so catastrophically awful that I would not dance at all.

The doubting self muscled in again insistently: but was I going to be too tall, were my clothes too unpresentable, was I too personally unembraceable?  Despite the misgivings I  did not think it wholly so.  I remembered a young guy and great dancer I had recently danced with several times and who had complimented the very dress I was going to wear that night. Another guy was to make another compliment on a different dress that weekend. 

In the milongas and in life I see time and again it is the kindnesses of people which can be the things of real value that shore us up when we need it.

Insecurity

Some people do doubt themselves, or rather allow themselves to be manipulated into doubt by the "teachers" they might do well to be rather more sceptical.  So here is my reply to that:

It's rubbish. And it's scary. It preys on feelings of insecurity. It creates feelings of insecurity and vulnerability in order to exploit that. That is what gets to me and what brings me to object. What kind of person does that?  Usually someone who wants your money or who wants you to feel bad, or who is going to look down on you. You think, "Well this teacher talks to me about embrace, may even grace me with their embrace - surely they cannot be doing that for cold-blooded commercial reasons. "Tango" [sic] is a "community" after all.  Of course teachers get paid but that isn't what it's really all about".  But sometimes - often - that is what it is all about. It appears that you are being helped: "Very good, but well, lots to work on...." but really you are being undermined.  They’ve used you parasitically, taken your money, can find no more takers and now in an attempt to keep milking the original source they try to create new demand by making you feel uncertain and inadequate and therefore in need of more lessons.  It is a particularly insidious kind of deception.  It is ruthless and relentless for sure but I can't even call it a jugular attack. That would imply a swift death.  No, it is more like a feeding on an unsuspecting host. Do you really want to dance with, to learn from someone like that?

For me, a great guy dancer does the opposite of that. He makes a girl feel safe, secure, special, he makes her feel that she is doing all the right things. If she trips or stumbles perhaps he acknowledges it in a way that says, wordlessly, “Are you OK? It's OK.” It’s not a guy who says - “You can’t dance because you don’t have the right skills because you got lazy and fell into bad habits and were too proud to go to class.”

Reviews

Someone (not the person below) said recently: "It would be a very interesting thing to hear frank anonymous feedback of the frustrations at events".

A:  I think the topic of how and whether to review (anything), and how to take a review is useful and interesting yet it doesn't come up much, anywhere.  Things are reviewed all the time, for no doubt all kinds of motives and they do have effects, good and bad - materially and emotionally so I think for all sorts of reasons the subject is worthwhile.  Besides, I want it clear that I'm not just out to cause trouble, that that isn't the point. Do you think it's a good topic?

B:  Yes

A:  The Berlin pieces are read consistently, so are useful I guess. I thought I'd do a shorter version for the places I went to last year in London.

[Later] How did you find the piece?

B:  If that's what you want to say, it looks OK to me. But it seems highly sanitised in places.

A:  You mean it "focuses on the positives"?

B:   No. I mean it omits material negatives.

A: The careful reader will note where there is *no* mention of good music or good dancing - and where there is.

B: Then I guess I was not careful enough, because I saw mention of good dancing. Carablanca's most widely acknowledged feature is utterly dire dancing.

A:   My visitor's experience of Carablanca was not that and it is a piece by a visitor. But leaving disagreement about what Carablanca is like aside, Britain is my doorstep. You are very careful not to say anything specific. Why don't you think I should be? I think it is perfectly possible to say things by omission.  I've had a rocky time with controversy this year and if the way things have gone have made me more aware - and I wouldn't have it otherwise - it also ended up making me materially less happy in comparison to when I didn't know things and just accepted how things were.  So if you don't mind I'll be careful where I think it needs it and write for the equally careful reader.

B:  Sounds like you're risking a careful reader spotting where you think there's no good dancing.

A:   What's wrong with & where's the risk in that?

B:  The same risk as making your message clear, I'd say. Being that a reader sees you're suggesting a milonga has no good dancing, leading to someone giving you a hard time.

A:  No one can really give you a hard time about saying good stuff. What people choose to see between the lines is up to them.  What would you have me do? Upset organisers and make others worried about having me at their milonga? You don't publish or say critical things about specific milongas.

B:  I sure don't. I'd not feel comfortable in publishing reviews with material negatives omitted. I'd be encouraging some people to visit and be disappointed - with the milonga and with me

A:  It is an excellent point but still I think the way to go is discreet & careful & suggest the bad by omitting it from what was good.

B:  You can't have it both ways. Either some people are going to hear the message about the bad or they are not. And in my experience those most likely to hear it are the organisers themselves.

A:  Writing openly and honestly about an experience would mean really not caring about upsetting organisers. Don't you care?

B:  I do, and though not much, enough to mean I'd rather write no review.

[Later, the review rewritten]

B:  It now looks more balanced and hence more useful to me.

A:   I do care about upsetting people and if I do this I worry about having nowhere to go through realising by writing just how things are or by not wanting to risk long travel by being turned away at the door for saying how things were in the past or because an organiser has solidarity with another place that may not have come out well in a review.

Ultimately I want better music and better conditions more widespread. I'm trying to figure out a way of helping people hear about, consider even the conditions in a milonga & make choices based on that & if my view on places I've been is a way to do that then maybe that is the way to go.  What happens to me personally is subservient to getting better conditions generally in milongas. But if I can't go, I can't contribute.   I want to know why you don't want to upset hosts who don't have good conditions.

B:  I don't want to upset anyone unless I think it is has a good chance of leading to improvement and there's no better way to make improvement.

A:  But you think it's OK for me to?

B:  Not in general. I think that it is good to have milonga reviews that tell dancers about the good and bad of various milongas so they can choose. That helps good conditions more through the effect of dancer choice than organisers reading direct much more.

A:  Agreed. That's the idea.  I don't want to be a me-jay about good conditions and good music but it seems to me that the people I saw doing all the talking about DJing (on e.g. online DJ forums) and to a lesser extent hosting are the ones at the bottom end. And yet dancers flock to hear them and not to, say, Brighton where the music and conditions are great. I understand that organisers get upset when people say things they didn't enjoy about their milonga. It's hard, after the effort people go to. It would be easy to think - why doesn't the reviewer set up something of their own instead of criticising other people. But that isn't possible here right now...

** Hesitation**

A:  You know, people who review books, especially writers say this: “It's sometimes better to say nothing than something hard, even if it's true.”  I have great respect for Anthony Grayling and I'm pretty sure this is largely his view. The novelist I stayed with in Brighton - it was her view too after someone trashed an early novel of hers.

B:   Better for some, no doubt.

A:  I gain at best, no personal advantage that I can see from this sort of thing. I worry about going too far.

B:  Too far for what?? :)

A:  Just a sense of maybe overstepping some line.

B:  A line drawn by people you don't care about, perhaps..

A:   Maybe. Not sure. "Causing trouble". "Being a troublemaker". It's not as though I can't defend things though, as though there aren't reasons, genuine concerns. I suppose because most people seem happy with the status quo some would think "Why would she try and stir things up if most people are happy?" But I think also some people, maybe even many are not happy but not dissatisfied enough or difficult enough to make a fuss. I saw in one of the Facebook groups how strongly some people feel when others block their line of sight for invitation during the cortina.   

Do you think there might be some kind of consequences of open, honest reviews?

B:   I'd guess some people will like you less and some people will like you more.

A:   Clarity then :) Even that consequence would be a pretty good result :)

**Hesitation**

During a conversation in the queer tango community it was reported that there are milongas - or at least a milonga - where same sex couples have been thrown out. I asked which milongas.  I thought sharing them was of public interest especially where people might go to a lot of trouble and expense to attend a milonga only to find themselves barred.  The person reporting wouldn't say though.  It was this, ultimately, that persuaded me that an open and honest review of a milonga was preferable to saying nothing.

**Hesitation**

I asked a couple more friends and both said they would find an open and honest review more useful than one that omitted anything that might be less than wholly complimentary.

**Hesitation**

A:  I re-read the conversation about milonga reviews. I know you said for you, there are better ways to improve things. Do you think I can do anything better than say how I found things such that that information might assist in dancers making decisions that might ultimately lead to better conditions in existing or new milongas?

B:   I don't know what other options you have.

A:  I think the main thing is there are so few places with, for me, good conditions, music, atmosphere, dancing that I'm not really going out to dance out anyway, so there doesn't seem to be much to lose.