Treat Me Like Your Dog!

               Men and women in America have evolved to the point where we no longer understand each other. That is the problem yet understanding is not the solution. Speaking as a man fully cognizant of his ignorance about the opposite sex, I am here to say that the best thing we can do at this point is to make her smile.

               We shouldn’t attempt to fathom the working of her brain, rather we should try to interpret her body language and use it to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts.

               It seems to me women are under the impression they provide men with sufficient verbal instructions to adequately comprehend the reasons for their actions. Much to the consternation of the gentler sex all their elaborate explanations seem to fall on deaf ears. It is not that he cares or doesn’t care, rather it is because her utterances don’t make sense to him.

               Ladies, try telling a dog why you’re doing what you’re doing and it’ll have the same reaction a man has. It’s ears will perk up, it’ll look you in the eye with sincerity and then turn away before you’re even done talking. Now give that dog a treat and see him respond! Don’t stop there: pat him on the head, say nice things to him, get him excited….but not too excited, right?

               So it is for a man trying to make sense of a woman’s actions.

               I  won’t claim to know the mind of a woman but I will say that dancing tango has allowed me to observe our better halves with much regularity. When a woman wants me to ask her to dance she will come over and chat me up, saying encouraging things to build up my confidence. She will smile, cock her head from side to side and look up at me, even if she has to lean forward to do so. 

                That works for me as it would for a dog.  

                When I first arrived in New Mexico, the difference between the American women and the non-American women was pronounced. My senses must have been heightened from being displaced from my home environment. Most of my conversations with the foreign-born girls was conducted almost entirely with body language; when I interfaced with the Americanas, the exchange was mostly verbal and my responses were never up to their expectations.

               American culture is suffering from gender identity confusion and this was most evident at our last practica. There were three more men than women.

               If we were the sexist pigs the media has told us we were since the sexual revolution began, we should have been fighting over those few girls like a pack of ravenous dogs with a bone…that did not happen. The guys that weren’t dancing started talking about fishing and continued telling taller tales when ‘challenged’ by another male’s quite fictitious feat. It is an endless loop of falsifications about the size and quantity of anything mentioned by the previous speaker. There is no room in this conversation for dance invites.

               I had to prod them a little bit but I finally got them to take turns with the three very happy women who were with us. I thought back to when I took up dancing as a hobby and recalled being the same way: if I got to talking with another guy about ‘who’s dog was bigger’, I soon lost interest in dancing.

               Women are not like that. If they’re talking and get a dance proposition, the conversation is ended quickly and they politely excuse themselves from their company.

               I think tango succeeds in America, and many other ‘western’ countries, because it fulfills a need that is lacking in the interaction between the sexes. The man’s laissez-faire attitude toward a scant gathering of females is half the problem. The other half is the lady’s desire to be fought over like a fresh kill in a pride of hungry lions.

               It fills that void with its many codigos, or codes of conduct, and its idiosyncratic customs like the birthday dance.

               The birthday dance is usually performed for a tanguera. As a song begins all the leaders line up to dance with her. Aggressive males will position themselves strategically around the room to interrupt her dance as skillfully and as brashly as possible; politely brash but the boundaries should be pushed to enhance the birthday girl’s enjoyment of the experience.

               If we were normal men, it would be evident that this is all done for the benefit of the woman whose special day it is and we would act out our parts as forceful suitors to the best of our ability. We are not a society of normal men. We are half of a civilization that has lost its testicles. We live in a world where the woman is more likely to be the primary wage earner. In the jobs we do have we are inundated with propaganda that constantly reminds us of our emasculation.

               The American tanguero is unique in that he responds to the problem of gender identity confusion in an ingenious manner. He could buy a ton of weapons and blast away at the shooting range. He might choose to hunt down animals who are no match for his superior fire power, gas-powered engines, camouflaged fabrics and lures. He may even join a religious group that consoles him with biblical quotes reaffirming his role as head of the household. There are many things he could do but most only resolve half of the problem.

               The tanguero settles this issue not only with respect to himself but also for the many women he encounters, not just on the dance floor but all who come in contact with him at work or at play. The tanguero dances to be pleasing to his partner at all times. He measures success not by how well he reads her thoughts or anticipates her movements, nor the quantity of kind words he receives from her but rather by her smile, the flush of her cheeks and the look in her eyes.

               This is a very productive approach towards a solution; to treat it as something that must be worked out with deference to both sexes; that we are part of a whole and all our efforts should be geared for a time when two people move as one, around the dance floor or along the road of life.


Note: Check out my new book on Amazon: Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure.

 Note: For an in-depth look into the mind of the Kayak Hombre, read his book, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369366756&sr=1-1&keywords=River+tango