The vanishing intermediate dancers

I have encountered another peculiar phenomenon: the vanishing intermediate dancer. First of all I continue to have great fun dancing with many intermediate and advanced dancers, so I am not reporting this a form of gripe, but simply as an observation (OK I am griping a bit...). There are some intermediate dancers who have figured out that advanced leaders and teachers will ask them to dance... and surely that must feel good. So they have decided that only advanced leaders are worth dancing with, and worth waiting for.

The upshot is that some followers I have taken classes with and who had been perfectly happy to dance with me then, and at milongas (OK, maybe they weren't "perfectly happy"...) now will turn me down, as I haven't quite made the grade to the status they now aspire to. Fortunately it's only few who have this attitude. The problem for intermediate leaders is that they are often reluctant to ask advanced followers... and if the intermediate followers turn them down as well, they only have beginners to dance with... which doesn't help the learning process.

Fortunately, as I was saying, most intermediate dancers will gladly dance with me, in fact some have asked me to partner and practice with them, which I view as a major turning point for my dancing. I keep thinking that "some day" I will be considered "advanced" and I will remember who helped get there...