A common theme I heard before coming to Buenos Aires was that in general, the men who dance at the traditional milongas prefer dancing with pretty young things.  At a milonga a bit over a week ago, I sat next to an older porteño woman who was grizzling bout exactly the same thing. Look, she said, they only want to dance with young women! I dont think she meant just young; she meant young and showing a bit of midriff.

She`d arrived af the milonga after me, and for her first twenty minutes or so, didn`t get one dance. Sitting next to me, on my other side, for the first part of the evening, was another older woman, Marta, who was up for practically every dance. Marta was not showing midriff. Looking around the room, there were other older women who were also in high demand. 

So the `pretty young thing`story is not entirely true.  What is true, is that as a general rule, the better dancers prefer to dance with someone else who dances well.  At the same time, they`re more likely to give an unfamiliar face a chance, if that face is young, smiling, and comes with some bonus bare flesh.

To a certain extent this works to my advantage.  Although I dress conservatively, and am an introverted grump, I look sufficiently young to get a reasonable number of offers to dance.

Is it about sex?  Yes, in a way it most definitely is not in Melbourne. In Melbourne, I haven`t once been directly propositioned while dancing tango. I`ve been on the receiving end of some subtle inuendo from a couple of people, but nothing that`s not easy to shake off.

In two and a half weeks of dancing in Buenos Aires I`ve been blatantly hit on several times.

Some of the men in question were average level dancers, obviously on the look out for a sex starved tourist. These are the men who disregard the cabeceo, and walk right up to the foreigner and ask them to dance.

A couple of my `ìnvitations` however have come from quite good dancers.  Are they also on the prowl for unwary tourists?  After a chat with Alanis the other day, I suspect that it`s not just foreigners that they`re after.

I`d gone in to pick up the shoes she`d made for me, and she asked how I`d been. Had I been dancing a lot?  I explained that the flu had slowed me down. Ah, she said, you need to get the Fullgrip T.  She wrote the name down on a piece of paper for me.  Is good for flu, will make you feel much better.  Is also, she added as an afterthought, very good for the sex.  When you meet a man at the milonga, you should take some before you have some sex with the Argentine man, and the sex will be very, very good.  Lots of energy.  Be careful though.

 I explained that I had a boyfriend in Australia, to which she said, then you shouldnt take for the sex, but is still good for the flu.

So not only are the milongas a pick-up place, they`re also fueled by pseudoephidrine. That explains the 70 year old at Confiteria Ideal who took a shine to me, and who danced like the energizer bunny.