My Glasses, My Heart, Part 2

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. It’s the way to many a woman’s heart, too.

My heart, as you may imagine, is staunchly contrarian. Dinner, candy, midnight nibbles: All leave me cold.

This makes me a cheap date … but not an easy one. I am a sucker for courtesy. Trust me: Dinner and sweets are much easier plays.

I am not judgmental about this, nor hard to please. I enjoy the company of every well-meaning person, even rude jokers, and my own manners are not as nice as I’d like. But I am not talking about manners, rather awareness … thoughtfulness … a sense of being tuned-in … ah, there it is: connection.

I am easy to please, but hard to impress. Pity the man who takes interest in me.

Or in whom I take an interest.

* * *

Tango and glasses do not mix.

That is why I wish I didn’t wear glasses.

When I dance in the style I prefer, my forehead to his temple, my glasses are an occasional annoyance, in turns and other moves that require a reorientation of the head.

When a lead insists that I dance straight-on, we encounter a problem: The protruding corner of the frame of my glasses pokes him in the temple. This is uncomfortable for both of us, due to the Rule of Equal and Opposite Force: When you exert a force against something and that thing resists, you feel the resistance as a force pushing back.

Einstein said that, and/or Machiavelli.

If I hold my head just right, with a fair amount of effort I can mimic the temple-to-temple position while keeping my glasses clear of contact … until the lead makes an unexpected move and our heads bang together. This is like getting a whole dance worth of equal and opposite force in one blow.

Ouch!

This is the sort of thing that prompts a man of weak character to abandon a woman on the dance floor.

For a long time I removed my glasses to dance. I laid them on the table where I was sitting, relying on the lead to return me to my table at the end of the tanda. This is the etiquette of the dance, Nina explained in her followers’ classes.

Other teachers weren’t teaching that lesson, or the leads weren’t listening.

I started to warn all comers: Happy to dance with you, need you to walk me back to my table when we’re through.

Well, no. I didn’t warn all comers. Some required no etiquette lessons. Glenlivet. Stan. Tom. Andre. Four of The Five. Not bad!

Once, as Glenlivet was walking me back to my table, we passed a group just in time to hear a man say, “… but you have to walk her back to her table.”

I did not see who said it. I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Also, I was bedazzled by Glenlivet’s charm.

* * *

Andre raised the bar on spectacles etiquette.

At the Blue Ice, where we studied as beginners, there is a long bar along one edge of the dance floor. Couples always entered the dance floor at the corner of the bar. Andre began every dance the same way. He would take the glasses and lay them in an protected spot; after the tanda he would lead me back to the bar, pick up the glasses and hand them to me.

One day during class, far from the bar, Andre invited me to put my glasses in his shirt pocket. He held it open and I dropped them in.

Wow!

Here, please listen for the twittering of birds … sunshine and rainbows or whatever corny thing you like.

You’ve had moments like this. Who hasn’t? Everything that has happened is happening still. Let’s all take a moment to bask.