Mathematics

So it starts at 8pm and ends at midnight?  4 hours of dancing, if we barge our way in as the doors open.

Tandas of four tangos, or three milongas, or three valses.  What's that?  Ten or fifteen minutes per tanda?  Let's say five tandas an hour.  Twenty tandas altogether.  I'll dance with my partner for five of them, let's say.  Just for the sake of argument.

Fifteen tandas left.  How many people at the milonga?  Maybe a hundred.  Okay, so I lead, I don't follow.  Roughly fifty potential partners throughout the evening.  There are five there whose dance makes me deliriously happy or makes me contentedly melt.  Ten tandas left.  And there are many, many who feel the music and dance with the whole of their hearts and and and.   Far more than ten of those.  But I need to dance with somebody I've never danced with before, or someone I've not danced with for a while.  I need to dance with someone who's beginning but promising, or beginning but struggling, or experienced but struggling, or having a bad night or bad week or bad month, or having an exceptionally good night or week or month.  I need to be brave and ask somebody who terrifies me.  I have to be kind and accept the cabeceo from somebody who's terrified of me.  The numbers break down.  The equation doesn't balance.  We need more time, longer milongas.  Time to sit and think and listen and watch (with smiles on our faces), rather than stuff our faces with chocolate all night.

I'm spoilt.

Maybe I need to let the numbers sort themselves out.  There's always tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.