I've been doing the dance classes for about four weeks, had my first private lesson on Thursday and it went well, my teacher loves me--she's like a sweetie-pie Angie of the tango world--and she and I email each other and hug and kiss when we see each other. So last night I went to my first milonga, which a social dance, in this case preceded by her and her assistant teaching us in a group class. I had fun in the class. I am not Ms. Supercoordinated but am making steady progress.

So after that the dance party began and I was watching for about fifteen minutes, chatting a bit, and then I was volunteered to sit by the door for an hour and get payment from people coming in, during which time I watched everyone dance. By the time my shift was up, I could not get out of there fast enough. I thanked my teacher and spoke with her a little. She said (and this was coming straight from her, nothing initiated by me) that people don't tend to dance with newcomers but that she would ask this guy Bob to dance with me if I wanted. I said no thanks and that I had to go.

I'll add that I was cheerful, smiling, dressed nicely with makeup and my hair even looked nice. The milonga crowd was all sorts of people of all ages, up to the seventies at least. And they danced pretty well up to superbly.

I get this: if I were a great dancer, I would not want to dance with an unknown quantity (or someone who I was sure was not good!). It's all about the connection in tango. But that scene pinged every single one of my introvert buttons. I suck at dance. No one knows me. Wait, a few people know me but they're hanging out with other people or dancing. Loud music. People introducing themselves to me and I can't hear their names. Tall, beautiful women. Men in their seventies who are still going to be dancing with the tall, gorgeous women and ignore me. I have a limited supply of small talk in me. Etc. Etc.

And I've already challenged myself so much....I'm challenging myself just by bringing myself to the class every week. I give myself so much credit here. Do you think I have this social dance background? No, I'm not even athletic. So imagine being the kid picked last for a team, but up the ante by throwing in doubts around femininity, attractiveness, being one of the few people who don't know the whole group...ugh.

The good news is, maybe even a few months ago I would have been overtly upset. I probably would have left the place and cried. I just felt weary, though. I thought: okay, here's the next challenge: how do I fix this? So it's good, right? As long as I can figure a way to make this work.

Which really means, make me adapt. I know the teacher and her assistant knew clearly that it was not an easy situation for a low-experience person, and even though I was cheerful and gracious, they inferred that I felt out of place. It's probably happened before, too. But the milonga is not going to change. I'm sure they're all like that. And a few weeks back I went to a practica (informal dance/lessons that aren't teacher-led; people just helping each other out on the floor). It was a completely different crowd, and no one asked me to dance so I sat there watching for an hour and left. They all seemed to know each other. It makes sense now. It's their world, and dealing with a less able person diminishes the fun.

So back to making it work for me. My husband won't be recovered from his injury for some months at least. I don't think he is really interested in dance anyway. He said he'd try it but clearly sounded pained. I am trying to think of friends who would go with me, because then at least I'd be guaranteed someone to dance with and hang out with. Maybe one of the women I met in my dance class.

But really, you also will nto get better unless you dance with good people. That's where I am feeling I have no choice but to ask people to dance.

And for someone like me who's shy and somewhat anxious, this is really really pushing all those buttons again.

Let me digress a bit with something else that's bothering me with all of this. I used to be involved in another online community. They had dedicated discussions for a broad range of topics, and one of the threads was centered around introverts and their struggles. (It might, or might not, be surprising that an online community would have an unusual percentage of self-identifying introverts as members.) And I dropped in on these ongoing threads every once in a while. It was really strange, though. Because I identified fairly strongly as an introvert, but what I saw was that I was really very mildly introverted, with some solid extravert tendencies. Because there were many people on this thread who described hating to talk on the phone. Hating to have to deal with the FedEx guy. It was torture for them to be at a small dinner party even if they knew people. Thanksgiving sucked. Etc. etc. I was willing to take their word for it that they were not psychologically messed up people, that this is how they're wired and they're capable of being happy when they're not overstimulated or in highly social situations. I agreed with them that US society is extremely biased in favor of extraverts, and that introversion is unfairly looked on as suspicious. All that.

So I guess I'm saying in a longwinded way that I have to fix something that maybe does not really need fixing? But it does? It's like playing a game. Conforming to the acceptable model. A lot of introverts self-described as having "extravert skills." I have some already; I just need to step them up even further.

I never feel this way at YLF meetups, by the way.

I love my classes; they're safe and focused...but it's like staying in school all your life. Why would I continue with social dance if I'm not going to get out there in the fray and...dance?

Thanks for reading...I don't know how to fix this, but I don't want to be the one who keeps holding myself back in life.