Milonguero style? Where?

I’m at the studio and class is starting soon. Music is playing and a few couples are warming up. A man I’ve never seen before, about my height, lanky and bearded, is standing alone. He nervously shifts his feet, hands dug deep into his jeans pockets. I ask him if he’d like to warm up, and he smiles, a shy animal smile, little sparks leaping from his eyes. I like him – for a few seconds. A few seconds is how long it takes me to realize he has no chest.

You know what I’m talking about, right? The man does something with his arms that could pass, to an outside observer, for close embrace, but there’s no there there. Where his chest should be -- that nice broad open plain you want to either gallop a horse across, or lie down in a soft sweet nest of sun-warmed grass – there is a perplexing concavity, a shallow unexpected valley. There is emptiness. There is not the smallest hope of connection.

Why do men do that? How do they do that? He didn’t look hunched, when he was just standing there. Is it that all of their body parts, including their brain, think they want to connect but when the embrace actually happens their chest chickens out? Did someone tell them not to make contact with our breasts? Please explain.

So my bearded, cave-chested leader begins some very fast, long steps with lots of carpa, and it just doesn’t work. I do my best but there is jostling and ambiguity, with a gaping hole in place of the information I need. I try to rely on signals from my right arm but he’s not talking to it. I try to pull back a little so at least I can visually glimpse what he’s doing but his arm around my back is an unyielding vise. I try harder to disengage, intending to abandon altogether the pretense of close embrace and transition to something open, and again it’s like pushing against a steel band. Finally I give him a good strong shove, and he stops moving abruptly, making startled eye contact with me.

Me: “I need a little more space please.”
Cave Man (shocked): “What, you don’t like milonguero style?”

I'm sorry, you're a dick.

I'm sitting in the corner, hiding from all the guys who took the class, the ones who think that just because I danced with Beer-belly Man I am going to dance with them as well. They've never heard the word cabeceo, and they use their best fifth-grade dance-class technique, bravely walking the million miles across the floor to hold out their palm to me, the tall slender woman in a red dress, and ask, "May I have this dance?" It breaks my heart to say No, because we're all still in fifth grade together and we all want to receive our daily dose of approval, but one is enough. Beer-belly Man has already stepped on me and left a slick of oily sweat on my cheek, and I already praised his newly learned ocho cortado, and I've earned the right to say No, thank you.

So I'm hiding in the corner and there you are, striding purposefully into my line of vision, and I have three heartbeats to make a decision: look away, or stand? I think I've seen you at the weekly practica where the Sad People only dance with each other. Sad, because they never look like they're having fun, and sad, because life is too short and tango is too deep to limit yourself to a small frosty clique.

You might be a Sad Person, you might not, I'm not sure. You might be Argentine, you have that look. You might be a dreamy lead from out of town. You might be my next practice partner. The club is sparsely sprinkled with dancers tonight, and I've already had my fill of my favorites. The first song of the tanda is half spent. I stand.

And there it is, the ghastly truth, exhaling its rank breath down my neck after one step: you're a dick!

I don't use the word dick lightly, though it is enjoying a certain rennaisance after taking a back seat these past years to the utilitarian jerk, the gentler creep, or less frequently, the odiously evocative asshole. But you, my friend, are a dick.

It only took one step to learn this, partly because of what was lacking before that first step was even consummated. No respectful, first-time breach of my perimeter; no tender merging of bubbles. No tingly-charged first touch, my palm to yours, my wingbone nestling into the crook of your arm, my fingertips finding the beads of your vertebrae. No synchronization of breath, two sets of lungs expanding to meet and melt at the sternum. No finding the measure of the music, letting it roll around and past us like a train churning to speed from the station while we stand on the platform, primed and waiting for that small welcome gap, that shifting open door, to step into together.

I stood, you grabbed me, I grabbed my axis and followed on your heels as you charged away. Here's the part that kills me: you can dance. That is, if you unbundle all that is tango and throw away the 90% (I may be exaggerating) that is non-technical, you can dance. You have balance and posture, a big bag of tricks, a lot of years in the soles of your shoes, a no-brainer upper-body lead. And I hated it. I was, for two and a half tangos, your dance mannequin. Did you notice that I never smiled? No, because you were too busy watching the spectators to make sure everybody saw you making me do way too many volcadas, boleos, and ganchos. Oh, if only I could wave my magic wand and make you walk. One entire tango, nothing but walking. You might notice that my long legs can do beautiful things, moving in unison with yours, instead of whipping around ceaselessly like a twirly-bird toy.

But then again, no. You wouldn't notice anything. You're a dick.