Just feeling bummed and copying pasting from Ney Melo’s article (a few posts below) about etiquette at milongas… 
I didn’t know that women did this to women… but they do, and it happened to me (I had a little situation with someone cutting in), and it surprised me enough that I think I’ll be taking a little break from Tango for a while. (of course, define “a while”… it could be three days, three months or three minutes… depends…hehe…)
” 5) CUTTING IN
I’ve seen old black and white movies where a Clark Gable or an Errol Flynn
type will cut in between the beautiful, young starlet of the movie and her
lame-duck partner who audiences forget about seconds later. Well, that only
happens in the movies. I’m pretty sure that “Cutting in” is banned in all
milongas in all the countries in the world. Back when I was a beginner, I
once had someone kindly ask me if they could “cut-in”. I kindly cursed them
and their family in my mind. That’s how serious it is! Invitations to dance
happen during the cortinas (the minute of ambient music that is played
between the tandas) not when 2 people are standing and talking
between the songs in a tanda. PERIOD.”
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Rule Number 3 for TANDA
* This is not a f%$^*&%# birthday dance where cutting in is permitted. PERIOD.
Penalty for this offence, to sit in purgatorio for 7 milongas or to be kicked in the shins 13 times by Comme Il Faut wearing Geraldine wannabes.
What? Cutting in is so so so wrong.
Dude, WHAT?
Yup.
What really gets me is that the guy allowed it to happen. It made me feel like he thought I was a horrible dancer.
All morning I’ve been replaying the tanda in my head, thinking “oh, he must have been excited to get rid of me because I did a boleo when I probably shouldn’t have. Or maybe I didn’t follow right. Or,….”
It really bummed me out, because I like dancing with this guy. Well, we’ll see if I accept his invitations again.
EWWWWWWWWWWW
Actually, I had one ocassion in which a woman cut a tanda, too. Well, not exactly. It was the second to last tanda of the milonga, and we were standing for the next (which he clearly wanted to dance with me) during the cortina, one the DJ announced that the last tanda was coming. So this woman crossed the whole dance floor, planted herself next to me and addressed my dancing partner: “Hey, remember you’d promised me to dance with me? This is the last tanda!!”. Just to clarify, she was not his girlfriend, or anything; in fact she’s married to some other guy. But she just decided that she had to get her tanda with this particular dancer, and kick me out of it. I didn’t know it at the time, so I looked at my dancing partner, who got a bit flustered into accepting (I don’t think he wanted to be rude), so I graciously went away. Once I found out that she was not his girlfriend, I was shocked… ugh.
Wow. Some people have no shame.
Someone tried to cut in on me a few weeks ago during the final tanda. He was actually dancing with his girlfriend at the time! and he asked if he could have one dance with my current dance partner. I just laughed and said “No, I’m enjoying this dance too much to stop”. My dance partner thanked me afterwards saying that it was the nicest compliment she’d received all evening.
David, that is a great response! I’ll have to remember it just in case it happens again (which I hope it doesn’t).
Me, I simply sulked away with my tail between my legs, went for a walk, and began to weep. Then I pulled it together and confronted the girl later. We’re cool now. But if I’d just said “nope, sorry, chica” in the first place, I could have avoided a lot of internal drama.
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