Remembering Herb

               Herb’s dead. 

               It’s been over a year and I thought about him for no particular reason, as I drove home last night. I was uncomfortable about my tango relationships with women and I think that triggered my memory of Herb, another uncomfortable relationship but not of the sexual kind. We partnered up at a workshop in Fishtown and it made both of us feel strange, so I thought I’d explore that phenomenon in tango that most of us guys don’t like to talk about: touching other guys.

               First, let me talk about Herb. He was a cool guy and dressed like a swing dancer: brightly colored shoes, checkered shirts or pants and a jacket. The first time I saw him was at Fearless Fire Company, in Allentown,http://www.fearlessfire.com/, during my ballroom dance phase. He was very popular with the ladies but we never talked.

               I’d like to elaborate on that aspect of this sport. When guys see other guys at a dance, they view them as competitors. At swing dances, I never engaged in conversation with the other men. Our only interaction was an awkward look when we tried to figure out who was a better dancer. If you were cha-cha-ing with a woman and she was laughing, other men would give you a glance that seemed to say, “what the hell is he doing that’s so great?” 

               This is not so prevalent in tango but is very common in the 'lesser' dances.

               When I got into tango and went to workshops in the Philly and Princeton area, Herb sightings became more frequent. He didn’t attend any classes taught by lesser tango mortals, only those of the truly skilled instructors. He was a barometer I used to decide if a class was going to be good or not. I would look at the ‘Attending/Not Attending’ list on a Facebook event and, if he was attending, then I knew it was worth the money to go.

               One day, I attended a workshop in Fishtown, a section of Philadelphia, north of I-676. Herb was there and the class was gender balanced in favor of the men, +2, two extra tangueras. There were two or three women I couldn’t wait to partner up with as we worked on different tango concepts. Twenty minutes into the class, three of the ladies decided to be leaders and took three other ladies as partners. This created a shortage of women partners for Herb, myself and Steve, from South Street practica.

               Steve didn’t have any problem with this but I could tell that Herb was just as homophobic as I was and was equally distraught. In times like these, you don’t want to show how close-minded you are, so you suck it up and practice the movements with the other guys. This part of the class was an hour long, so we had forty minutes of awkwardness to endure. It wasn’t so bad with Steve, who can be fairly androgynous when he wants to be, but it was horrible when I had to practice with Herb. We both hated it and that made it even worse.

               Since then, there have been other moments in workshops when I’ve had to practice with male partners. It is never enjoyable but it has gotten to be less disgusting. I can thank Herb for that.  I think I’m more open-minded about it now, but it has been a hard row to hoe. Whenever I ran into Herb at other events, we exchanged awkward glances. It wasn’t the usual ‘competitor’ look between males, it was more of an, “oh yeah, I touched you, yuk!” expression. We were still friendly but I never felt comfortable enough around him to strike up a conversation.

               Herb passed away last year, sitting in his reclining chair while watching TV. Thanks, Herb, for the memories and for getting me through a rough forty minutes. I hope you’re buried between two ladies and I hope there’s dancing in heaven. RIP.