It’s time to speak up…
His fingers dug into my side with an unusual ferocity. Like claws, his hands pushed and pulled at my flesh like he was trying to dig into the space between my ribs, searching for something. He wasn’t a bad dancer per se. He obviously really felt the music, had a lot to express. But it all felt a little bit too much. I closed my eyes and concentrated on following his lead.
There was a time when this kind of dancer was very attractive to me. His eccentricities would appear to me as signs of brilliance, his painful clawing an expression of the deep passion within. But now it just felt inappropriate and sleazy.
“I should say something,” I thought. I frequently preach about women speaking up and being more communicative about what they want. “I need to walk the talk,” I thought. So I decided to wait until the end of the tanda to say something. God forbid I interrupt his flow and put a wet blanket on his experience. Better do it at the end to ease the blow.
After the last song we hugged and in a split moment I decided to lead with the positive and complimented him on the beautiful tanda. Even though it was uncomfortable and painful for me, I wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt his feelings.
“That was a beautiful tanda, thank you.” I said.
His face beamed with satisfaction and pride.
“May I say something?” I continued cautiously. “Your fingers on your right hand felt a bit… intense on my side.” I was trying to be gentle, polite, cheerful.
He laughed and said “like me!”
Without dropping a beat he then let this little pearl drop from his lips “if you can’t handle my intensity then you better find someone less intense to dance with.”
I paused with a smile frozen on my face, looked him straight in the eye and said “duly noted…”
Here was a dancer who didn’t care to make me feel comfortable in the embrace, he wasn’t concerned about what I felt or how to make it better. He sounded proud, entitled, selfish. He believed that he deserved to get what he wanted exactly how he wanted it and if someone else had an issue with it, that was their problem.
As I walked off the dance floor knowing that I would never dance with him again, I thought about all the energy I spent thinking about him and taking care of his feelings during the tanda. While none of it was necessary or appreciated. Wasted energy really.
As women we have been conditioned to think about everyone else’s comfort before ours. We are hyper alert and aware of other people’s feelings and we always want to avoid rocking the boat, avoid confrontation or conflict, keep the peace. Every act of “selfishness” feels criminal.
I got a call from a woman one time who didn’t know how to tell her dance partner that his collar was poking her in the face every time they danced. “What do I do? Am I allowed to say something about it to him?” She asked me nervously.
I say it’s time to change the narrative. It’s time to set aside the care and concern and learn to be honest and clear about what we want on the dance floor.
I was proud of myself for speaking up, but after our little exchange I left the dance floor with the feeling “I should have said something sooner.”
So that’s what I am going to do from now on and I invite others of you to put it on for size along with me. The next time you take the embrace and you don’t like something, pause, look them straight in the eye and say “this doesn’t feel good, could you please stop” or something to that effect.
And if they say something like what the gentleman mentioned above said, then you have my permission to say “I’m sorry this is not working for me…” and walk off the dance floor.
That’s what I had to do earlier that night, at the same milonga… More about that in my next post.
Written by Yelizaveta Nersesova
And speaking of changing the narrative… are you interested in learning to lead? Check out my upcoming Women Leading Tango 6-week Immersion Course coming up in February!