My understanding of women decreases with each epiphany I experience about the opposite sex. They’re all different, each and every one, but they do have a common lived experience and that is one of being attractive, whereas men live a common experience of being attracted to women. How a person perceives themselves is integral in how they make decisions. I will try to imagine how that perspective is played out at the milonga.
As guys, we devote a lot of energy to imagining how women are perceiving us. Unfortunately for men, women are probably not devoting the same amount of energy into what they have gleaned about us. A casual glance, at which they are quite proficient, tells them all they need to know: hygiene, financial status, mating chances, are all determined, rightly or wrongly, in their first impressions of a man.
At the milonga, most women are dressed well, while others are dressed for comfort. I’m not casting any shade on the comfortable, they are probably tango addicts whose entire schedule is based around milongas and practicas and they no longer feel the need to preen because they are lost in the journey of this dance. Attire is a sure tell on the mindset of the tangueras present at the dance. It shows insecurity and desperation. Inside each woman at the milonga a storm rages internally. She may appear cool, calm and collected externally as she does her best to conceal the hurricane swirling inside.
I think that attraction is a power women possess that is difficult for a man to imagine…and yet, I try.
I have to wonder at the scantily clad woman, baring it all for the sake of fashion. If it were me dressed like that, boldly allowing my penis to be outlined by my sheer….briefs, I would be too embarrassed. It seems to me these ladies feel none of that. In fact, they seem the opposite of embarrassed, they seem confident, maybe even fierce, as if they are warriors in a battle for who-knows-what. I'm sure they know what.
Attractiveness is power. I believe that is tango’s allure to these women. Isn’t that funny? Tango attracts women who want to explore their own power of attraction. It’s like the real world for a woman in the use of her abilities. Your daddy is telling you to cover up. Why? Why would she throw a bushel over her light?
“Why would I hide this?” She says to herself, baffled by her father’s inability to see that her appearance is a strength and that she intends to exercise that muscle, regardless of her dad’s objections.
“I attract, therefore I am.”
Armed with that knowledge she ventures out into the world and is torn apart by the forces of Life. She struggles to get by for a while but begins to make gains as she learns to adapt and pivot with the curves being thrown at her. Twenty years later she is older and wiser. She now understands the awesome force of youth and beauty and feels she would wield it differently if only she could go back in time. That is not possible but tango gives her a chance to go back in time. Tango is where she searches for a chance to be awesome once more, in the arms of a man who is affected by her beauty.
As a man, I can say she is not wrong. As a man, I must say that my insights are not sightful, they are only an exposure of the mind of a man dancing tango. I often learn by exploring my erratic and gender-biased imagination.
Sometimes, when I am dancing, I catch glimpses of a woman’s youth and attractiveness and I am visibly overwhelmed. Sometimes I say stupid things. Yes, I have been affected. That’s what men do when we are affected. We say, “I love you,” and write bad checks.
What we want to happen is fantasy. What happens is reality. That is how the dance goes, it is a clash between reality and fantasy. Storm clouds emerge when the two collide and weather happens. It takes two to tango but a lot more people are needed to make a dance a milonga. It is at the milonga where our true selves are revealed. Here we are the attracted and the attractive. And yet, the longer I dance tango, the less certain I become that men are merely the attracted and women merely the attractive. That framework begins to crack the moment the music starts.
Once the embrace closes, something changes.
The beautiful woman who commanded the room with a single glance suddenly becomes vulnerable to disappointment. The confident leader who strutted across the floor becomes terrified of making a mistake. The masks loosen. Attraction may open the door, but tango exposes what walks through it.
The young dancer believes tango is about being desired. The older dancer discovers it is about being seen by your partner.
To be desired is easy enough. Nature handles most of that on its own. A tight dress, a handsome face, good posture, a confident smile—the machinery of attraction has been running since long before any of us were born. But to be seen? That is rarer. That requires stillness. Honesty. Listening. Presence.
Perhaps that is why tango becomes almost spiritual for some people. Beneath the seduction and elegance lies a deeper hunger. We come to the milonga pretending to look for dances, when in reality we are looking for recognition. We want someone, if only for twelve minutes, to say with their body: “I feel you there.”
And maybe that is why tango hurts sometimes.
The cabeceo ignored.
The tanda that never arrives.
The beautiful connection that disappears into the night without explanation.
The realization that attraction can open a conversation but cannot sustain one.
Fantasy enters the milonga dressed beautifully. Reality arrives a few songs later.
Still, we return.
The old man with polished shoes returns.
The woman fighting time returns.
The shy beginner returns.
The virtuoso returns.
The lonely return.
The romantics return.
The predators return.
The wounded return.
All circling the floor together beneath dim lights while violins cry through worn-out speakers.
Why?
Because every so often, amid all the confusion and projection and vanity and longing, something real happens.
For a single tanda, two people stop performing themselves.
The attractive forget they are attractive.
The attracted forget they are pursuing.
And both become human beings moving through space to music, suspended briefly between loneliness and love.
That may be the true power of tango.
Not attraction.
Recognition.
That’s all for now,
As always,
Peace, Love and Tango
Don’t be afraid to check out my latest books. I wrote a couple under a pseudonym, Carmen Cray. Here are links to those books available on Amazon.
