Tango is the only dance I’ve ever tried to learn. It is also one of the more difficult dances to learn as it is entirely improvised within certain limits. It is an activity with which I have a longer personal backstory given where I was in life the first time I visited Buenos Aires and tried it, but that is perhaps a topic for a different week.

On my more recent trip to Argentina, I actually took lessons once or twice per day for the three weeks I stayed in Buenos Aires after the dove shoot in the north. There were even some group classes in Spanish and a very fun night with that group during which we went dancing together and then had a very late dinner in the heart of the city. I didn’t publish anything about those lessons at the time, though I did take copious notes for a potential writing project that has since collected metaphorical dust on my hard drive.

One of the last things I did on that trip was to purchase a pair of dance shoes. It was a pre-commitment to make myself fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy so that I’d keep up the activity. It didn’t work that way as life took its twists and turns (during 2023 especially), but as I was looking for things to do at the start of 2024 I decided to explore tango locally. For the last couple of months, I’ve been taking group lessons again and attending a few of the other tango events.

Saturday night was the local monthly milonga (social dance), which is about as close as the atmosphere gets to being in Argentina for dancing. Was I any good? Objectively, no. At least I only stepped on one person’s toes. Were there groups of women who refused to even look at me when partners were being formed? Absolutely. Frankly, I was surprised there weren’t more who refused me. If I’d actually been in Buenos Aires, then that is precisely what would’ve happened. It was still frustrating, but it offered a realistic assessment of where my skill level is right now. There is quite a bit of work to get to the point where it can really be fun, but I might just persevere.