Private milonga @ La Manufactura Papelera en Barrio San Telmo/Buenos Aires
April 22, 2007
AlexTangoFuegoFoto
Sugar G and I got invited to an encuentro. We've been invited to a few others, but this is the first we could attend. Nice venue, nice part of town, nice group of people, "okay" airbnb close by. Great dj'ing, amazing/real food, great energy/vibe, kinda slick floor. All that jazz. From a leader's perspective, a 'target rich environment' as Rigoberto Ruizik and I would say back when such sexist locker room talk was less frowned upon.
So the first night, no one knew me from Adam, except the host and a couple of other folks. Sugar G reconnected with a large handful of old friends.
She danced.
I sat.
Y'all may not know this about me, but I'm shy. Introverted extrovert or vice versa. Not forthcoming with the gift of gab. I might even be perceived as aloof. I've been a loner pretty much since I could walk.
So I'm at a disadvantage from the get-go.
But, I circulated, wandered around. As best I could. I smiled. I made eye contact. Which was not reciprocated. Much. It felt like any reciprocal eye contact was being avoided. Eyes averted. Eyes down. I kinda felt like a voyeur. Everyone knew everyone and there was a lot of heartfelt greeting and reconnecting going on. People hadn't seen people for some months.
Small but important factor. We were the oldest ones there. I was the oldest one there. Average age = my daughter's age. Or definitely newborns when I was 19.
Voyeur or chaperone at prom. Hmm. Or maybe hmmm?
One tanda with the hostess. Three or four with Sugar G. Maybe five. Six total.
The rest of the time I sat. Or stood.
Nice to be back dancing after nearly a year of kind not much dancing. Dancing and getting my chops back. Re-cutting my teeth. Remembering shit long forgotten to remember. Technique type shit.
So on the way home, and until I fell asleep, I was feeling kinda dejected. Self-downing. Feeling my age. Feeling unknown. Feeling unloved. Platonic/friend type love. In my tango life. At the height of feeling loved and loving and in love like never before. That would be Sugar G.
Otherwise I did my damnedest at cabeceo all night. Or mirada. Whatever. Whatever the fuck. Trying to elicit some reciprocal mirada. A sign. Any sign of interest. But it t'weren't meant to be I suppose.
The next day was an entirely different story. Tall flaming red hair was looking for a tool of some sort to punch a new hole in a Comme il Faut strap. I had cabeceo'd her the night before to no avail. Turns out I had a Leatherman multi-tool in my truck and offered to grab it, since she wasn't having any luck finding anything in the venue. So that worked out, turned it into a tanda, although it was a pretty sucky invite because I had to come up from the back/side. Nice dance. Nice woman. A good friend of a good friend as it turns out.
Then I got cabeceo'd. Ego boost and shared bodily fluids. Sweat, anyway. Sweat never bothers me. Especially when it's mutual. Another nice tanda with a nice woman.
Encuentros are like that I suppose, full of nice, good, real people. Invitation only is a damn good filter of the tango riff-raff.
Two four hour stints back-to-back wore our tango asses out. Plumb tuckered. Out. So we chose to screw instead. Okay, make that 'make love'. We made love and skipped the milonga. Netlix and screw. Missed the great dj I haven't heard in years. Oh well.
Leisurely morning, woke up slow, and headed on back to the house.
More dancing in two milongas than in the prior 10-12 months.
Ego restored back to neutral. I guess. Good first encuentro. Fun. Sweet. Some connections made and introductions had for next time.
I need to work on my cabeceo/mirada/invites. I suck at it. I'm very particular about the music that moves me to want to dance. I'm also very particular about who interests me to invite. Probably too particular. I'm also pretty committed to non-verbal invites.
I need to work on all that.
Less sitting that way. I hear y'all. Sitting sucks. It really sucks when you want to be dancing and the opportunities seem ripe. Or is it rife? A little of both I think. Maybe.
In theory.
But if the women never make eye contact, that makes it tough.
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