Leaders Who Can’t Get Dances

‘I got very few dances tonight—hardly any dances. So I want my money back,’ the visitor demanded. Yes, it was just another day at the office, at Los Locos Amsterdam. ‘I’m sorry, what?’, our team member behind the bar said. ‘Where I come from, I get to dance all evening. Here, women don’t dance with me,’ he continued. He wasn’t joking; he was dead serious. ‘You know how often I went to events where I didn’t even get ONE dance?’ she replied. ‘Well, come to my place in *******, and you’ll have many tandas, with many leaders. So, can I please have my money back?’ You would expect some milonga policy to come into operation, prohibiting refunds to assholes. But the angel behind the bar actually gave him his money back, just to see him leave. 

You all know me as a cold bureaucrat who doesn’t give a damn about anything, as long as revenue comes in. But there is a soft side to me, too. When I heard about the incident, I empathised with the guy who didn’t get dances, even if I didn’t admire his handling of the situation. Also, I prefer happy customers. The common belief among tango dancers out there is that our milonga hosts an elitist group of arrogant dicks and cold bitches who won’t open up to visiting strangers. The Angry Englishman Speech (which I elaborated on elsewhere) was almost 10 years ago, and I was mindful of our efforts to improve the milonga’s reputation. I considered that the guy who refused to pay wasn’t an isolated incident, but the tip of the iceberg,

‘I didn’t know it was a thing, leaders complaining about not getting dances,’ a regular visitor of the milonga said to me when I told her about it. I knew damn well it was a thing because leaders would offer unsolicited comments to me whenever our paths crossed at other events. “I don’t come to your milonga because women don’t dance with me,” they would say. I mostly wriggled my way out of those situations, acting surprised, saying: “That’s hard to believe, because you are breathtakingly good-looking, and you’ve been investing so much in private lessons! Followers at Los Locos will appreciate it, they spend a lot of time improving their tango, too.” They would look at me sheepishly. My overuse of irony most likely destroyed any reasonable chance of them visiting our milonga again.

Recently, a guy came up to me as La Cumparsita played, after a busy night at Los Locos. I was collecting our renowned designer plastic flowers and handpicked tacky tablecloths.‘‘Next time I’ll take a broom with me so I can dance with that,’ he told me, with a pained smile. I felt like John Cleese’s chef, driven to madness because a customer complained about a speck of dirt on his spoon. ‘I just think you should know, as a host, that I hardly danced tonight. Everywhere I go, I dance. El Corte, Haarlem, you name it. But I can’t get dances here.’ I considered either mild sarcasm or tough irony, but the only brilliant repartee I could come up with was a weak ‘Well, keep trying’. ‘A week later, he returned. At the end of that evening, I asked him how it went. ‘Better,’ he said. There may still be hope for us.