Tango and relationships

When I first started dancing tango, one of my first tanguera friends told me that at some point she had decided not to mix tango with dating interests. I found that hard to understand, as of course tango is the dance of seduction and connection. What better introduction could there be to possible dating partners?

I could relate to potential problems with jealousy. My very first experience with learning tango took place several years ago with my (now) ex wife. She simply could not bear to see me dance with other women ... so we stopped dancing. I started again only after re-acquiring single status.

Now I am realizing that it's much more complex than that. I met my present girlfriend at tango at I was confident that we could handle well the jealousy issue. In fact we do. We dance mostly with others and we have had no issues to date w/r to any particular dance partners, but other issues are cropping up and I think we need to adjust our thinking to continue being successful in both the dance and in our relationship. Here are what I consider examples of "dangerous thinking".

1. Ok to dance with others... but "our" dance needs to be "special".

Well... it IS special, but, for a number of reasons, it may not always "feel" special. Maybe the music is not inspiring, or one of us is tired, or some thought crosses our minds and we get momentarily distracted, or I suddenly feel like trying a new step. We agreed to practice at different specific times, but sometimes the brain gets a sudden idea that might never come up again at "practice time". So you go for it. If it works it's cool and wonderful, if not... "you were practicing instead of connecting with me".

It's like sex... sometimes you touch the stars and sometimes it's just good sex. If you always expect to touch the stars and get upset if you don't ... you pretty much guarantee bad sex from then on.

I think one simply needs to relax, enjoy the partner, enjoy the music, enjoy the dance and let the connection happen without evaluation and judgment. That's not a guarantee that it will be always "special" but not doing so is a guarantee that enough fear, apprehension, and distractions will be inserted to make the "special" ever more rare.

2. Are you asking me to dance because you really want to dance with me or because you saw that I haven't been dancing, or because you have just been turned down by someone else?

Trying to second guess the "reason" for asking is a guarantee start to a lousy dance. The point is that YOU, the love partner, are ALWAYS, a special treat to dance with. You need to trust that, no matter what has been happening on the dance floor... who has been dancing with whom and with how many partners. Not trusting that is a form of jealousy, not of a specific person, but of the whole tango scene.

Again, it's OK (and probably a good idea) to reserve some number of dances and, likely, the last tanda, but, beyond that, one needs to simply relax and enjoy being asked whenever it happens. Starting the dance with a bunch of questions, and possibly some suppressed resentment in one's head, is a guarantee to ruin any possibility for that special connection we want.

3. You are saying that you are tired and ready to go home whenever I am ... but we haven't had a good dance yet!

This is really saying: "The dance hasn't been "special" yet, and you don't seem to care!" (or... you don't love me anymore...). This is related to #1 and identifies Tango with a necessary vehicle for expressing love. I guess the problem for me is to be able to switch this feeling "off and on"... and keeping it mostly "off", as expected while dancing with everybody else. So having kept that switch off and feeling now tired, I sometimes "forget" that my partner is expecting me to turn it back on for her before the evening ends. I will usually reserve a last tanda for her, precisely for this reason, but it is possible that sometimes I feel simply ready to leave the scene. For whatever reason, tango, at that particular moment, doesn't seem like a good vehicle for expressing my love. Maybe I'm just tired of the focus that is needed, maybe I am disappointed in myself for a lousy dance, maybe I am tired of being turned down and I just want to go home. Maybe I just want to go out to the car, hold her hand and kiss her in private. Maybe I just want to go home and make love. Sometimes one just says "f**k tango" . .

Tango can certainly be a vehicle for expressing love, but it's OK if sometimes it was just and evening of good exercise. So we walked around the dance floor twenty time rotating here and there, doing ochos, volcadas, colgadas and sacadas... Now it's time to go home. One of my favorite statements about life is "The only way to take life seriously is not to take it too seriously" .... This is true of tango as well.