The Stigma of Follow

  

               For some women, to hear the term follow is like putting salt on a wound they cannot hide. I believe this has something to do with the pain of a past relationship. It is an injury of the heart that I have often encountered within the tango embrace and I have to wonder if this phenomenon is endemic to American culture.

               Of the many workshops I’ve attended, I can tell you that the instructors are very much aware of the hurtful nature of this word. They often try to find replacements for the phrase lead and follow, such as intend and complete or initiate and execute.  

               Some teachers use the tough love approach and tell their students to just get over it. That works for some but not for all.

               Love and war have many similarities. In helping my father put his memories of the Korean War into writing, I learned that men who fought together as a team experienced a bond so strong that their pain was shared collectively. If one man was injured, the whole team felt it. A team consisted of three men and they shared a foxhole together for weeks at a time as the enemy pounded them with terrifying mortars and gunfire.

               He said many times that the death of one was also a shared experience even though the remaining members lived.

               Marriage can be like that. It is not unusual for people who have been married for decades to expire within a few months of each other.

American media is constantly bombarding women with the message that they are smarter than men. I think that leads many women to believe they are undervalued in their relationship and this may be the birthplace of the stigma they begin to associate with the word follow.  

I am certain that I have been the cause of this injury in at least one instance. It was not intentional and it hurt me to see it happening like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

You may disagree with my explanation of the source of the injury and that’s okay. I am not a psychiatrist or someone who can speak to this problem as a professional. I am merely postulating a source. Whatever the cause, it is real and it needs to be acknowledged.

Tango is a dance where the men are men and the women are women. We are hurters and hurtees. The Stigma of Follow can be an impediment to the tango connection but it does not have to be that way. 

When I am dancing I want to experience fully the woman I am embracing. I need to move with her to the music and I can’t do that if she is hiding something from me. Of all the things she has, the thing I want to see the most is her pain. I want to share it with her. 

There is something special about sharing in someone else’s burden. Speaking for myself, it gives me a chance to be the salve instead of the source. It is usually therapeutic for both parties involved but it can be intoxicating for the person who is accepting it; it is a drug that creates missionaries and crusaders.

Don’t let your hurt stop you from dancing. Yes, you will be exposed when you enter that tango embrace but it is that exposure that will free you in the end. When the song is over and the music fades, you will find your cares a little lighter because some of it has been taken from you.

For more of my writings, check out my books available on Amazon: