That sums it up for me too.
At my school, policy was that non-upperclassmen couldn’t attend. So, as a senior dating a sophomore, I couldn’t take her. Wacky, though, because if she had attended a different school they would have allowed it (I guess they figured we could just lie about her being an upperclassman). Anyway, I didn’t go to “my” senior prom, but we did go to “her” senior prom years later. It was okay, YMMV.
A few things, grasshopper:
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Like you, I can dance. This is not to say I particularly enjoy it, but I can. A lot of girls/women enjoy it and a lot of men humor them because it’s a chance to talk and get to know them. And let’s face it, it sometimes sets in motion a chain of events that could just lead to getting in their pants.
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That said, you don’t have to dance. There are other reasons people go, which may or may not appeal to you.
A) The “grown up” factor. I think it’s partly a ritual whereby everybody gets all dandified and this announces their (alleged) maturity. Baptisms, bar mitzvahs, yadda, this is in the “milestones” category. Parents snap photos and coo about how you’re all grown up etc. and you get a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
B) The “last chance” factor. You’ve attended school with some of your classmates since Kindergarten and, once you graduate, there are some you will never see again. They’ll scatter to places unknown, so this is a formal, final, hurrah with photos and all that.
C) The “farewell to youth” factor. Some of your graduating class will go directly into a job at the local supermarket or factory as soon as high school ends. The relatively carefree days of being a student will end soon, so it’s party-while-we-can time. Next big party: getting married.
I’m less concerned with whether you’ll regret not going to prom than I am with the pattern of avoidance of social situations. Put it this way: when I was in high school, my best subject was probably math. Others around me had difficulty with it. They had to work harder at it, get some help, and so on, to pass it.
We can look at that and applaud it, say it’s great that they recognized they were weak at it and took steps to learn what they needed to learn. It’s hard on the ego, admitting that you’re not getting it and so on, while others breeze through it.
But not everything you learn in school is in the books. You may be tearing up the scene with great report cards but you don’t have the social skills needed to get the things you want in life. Having enough friends, finding dates, and connecting with others are critical things and in the adult world, these tasks only seem to get harder. It’s a pity there isn’t tutoring for that after school, eh?
IMO you need to engage in the world and take some chances. When an attempt falls flat, you need to learn from it, then shake off and get back on your horse. Avoiding the situation only delays the learning curve.
One strategy I use is to find social things centered around things you already like to do. E.g. if you like to play cards, find a card game to join and if you don’t make a friend or meet a girl, at least you’ll fun playing cards. Here’s a website that helps connect people with similar interests:
Final note: IMO connecting with others is often a very circuitous path. Dopers are a very intelligent bunch, which could be working against us at times. If you want to be a doctor, you’d study hard to make good grades, prepare carefully for your ACT or SAT, apply to good schools, try for financial aid, and…and…and… There’s a logical approach.
But the logical approach doesn’t carry the day in social interactions. Suppose you find a card game (to extend the example) and you meet an elderly man. ‘Drag,’ you think, ‘I am not dating him!’ Ah, don’t forget that he may have a grand-daughter who is just perfect for you.
Networking increases your connections and chances. I bet a lot of people go to church or join the local Rotary for similar reasons. Someday you get laid off from your job…but it turns out you know someone in your social circle who can hook you up with an interview at a place that’s hiring.
Good luck!
I went, but my best friend didn’t. I went with my boyfriend at the time, and really wanted to go with him. (Parenthetical: my regret, in retrospect, was going with my boyfriend. If I’d been wiser, I would have seen that he wasn’t a good person for me and would have gone with someone else, a friend who went to prom even though he didn’t have a girlfriend, and who had the best time dancing on the tables until he got thrown out. In retrospect, I suppose he’s my regret.)
My best friend didn’t and doesn’t regret not going to prom; she wasn’t dating anyone at the time, and thought the whole prom thing was kind of dumb. She said that she got some pangs when we talked about it afterward, but that she’s never regretted going because there wouldn’t have been a point in going.
So don’t go. My two cents, for what it’s worth.
I would only advise going if the situation is the following:
-You have a really good group of friends who want to go. If you can go stag, then that’s not a problem.
-If your school is still stuck in the Dark Ages, as mine was, find a good friend you want to spend time with-don’t go just to go.
Other than that, meh. You won’t really regret it. The best part of Prom Day in my school was that seniors and/or juniors going could skip that day of school to get ready. So even though I wasn’t going, I just skipped school that day, went down to the salon down the street, got a brand new hairdo, and then went to the movies.
(On the other hand, I am SO glad I went to the senior semi-formal. THAT was a blast. Not that you have to go if your school has one-just that I had a really great time, with a bunch of friends I probably wouldn’t see after school ended.)
Yeah, that’s about right for me. If I had my life to live over again, I still wouldn’t go to prom, for all the reasons I didn’t go the first time. But there are times when I wish I’d had the chance to go anyway.
My prom was last year and I didn’t go to the actual dance, but we had a Grand March where everyone dressed up and paraded around. The Grand March is a bigger deal than the prom and all I really wanted to do was dress up, I didn’t care about dancing. My GM date and I went out for ice cream and waited for our other friends to finish at the prom, then we went out to McDonald’s. Mmm, healthy eating at it’s finest.
Anyway, the point of the whole experience seems to be one last hoo-ha before everyone parts ways for the summer, so if that’s not really your thing, don’t go. I’m a bit like you, I suspect. I never attended a high school dance that wasn’t mandatory, I was part of a quirky kind of crowd and I didn’t have an SO to take me. I asked one of my drama buddies who’s a year younger than me to be my date for GM, and he obliged. He would have gone to prom if I had wanted to, but all I wanted to do was hang out and not have to stand around in uncomfortable shoes. I didn’t care about 98% of the people at the dance, so what was the point in going? Do whatever makes you feel comfortable, I suspect you would regret wasting time at a dance when you could have been having real fun more than you would regret not going to your senior prom.
Didn’t go, don’t regret it. I was a geeky, socially awkward teenager with no real friends, although I did have a few friendly acquaintances by senior year, and I wouldn’t have known what to do at a prom. I suspect I would have hung around the snack tables eating potato chips very slowly and hoping somebody would speak to me.
Besides, my grad school department had mock proms every year, so I eventually got my chance to indulge in floofy dresses and '80s music with people I actually liked. (I’m still a geeky, socially awkward adult, but grad school is kinder to my personality type than high school is, and besides, there is beer.)
I didn’t go and made about $100 by not going.
I looked like Joey Ramone with bad acne in high school so I didn’t even consider asking a girl. Two buddies and I got a couple of kegs and rented a campground at a state park (you could do that for a Montana kegger in 1980.) Admission was $3 but free for any girl in a dress before the prom. We had about 150 paying customers. After paying the $25 campground fee and 50 bucks for the kegs we had a wad of money.
About 15 years later I had the realization that I could have gone. I was cooler in high school than I realized. I should have had a good time with Pam E., the female friend who as secretly in lust with me. :smack:
OTOH, I was able to throw enough parties and such that I came out of my senior year without having to spend any of my paychecks - $2,000 in the bank in 1980 was a lot of money.
YMMV
whistlepig
If you have a lot of high school buddies and you enjoy social dance parties, you should go to prom. If you have friends who would say “Hey man, we missed you at the prom, you should have gone”, then you should go. If you have reason to believe there is 10% or better chance of experiencing something particularly sexually memorable that otherwise wouldn’t happen, then go. If you already have a girlfriend who puts out generously and wants to go to prom, you should oblige. This is the purpose of the prom.
I didn’t fit any of those situations; I went to prom and I barely even remember being there (not due to any alcohol consumption either). I’d say I should have skipped it, except I didn’t spend much money and I can’t think what else I would have done that night. If I hadn’t gone, then I would never have known if I should have skipped it or not.
If you want to be involved somehow, you could volunteer as a designated driver for someone. Keep a drunk off the road, get some good karma points… who knows, something interesting might end up happening.
I’ve never been to a prom, and I don’t feel like I missed anything, with one exception.
I have become a lot more social in the many years since high school, and I sometimes regret that I did not force myself to be more social back then. I think a prom is a very good excuse to break out of one’s comfort zone, either by doing things like asking someone out or going by yourself and asking girls or guys to dance.
I am convinced that learning how to talk to and interact with cute people of the opposite sex is a skill like just about any other, whether it is golf or juggling or writing or skiing: for very few people it comes naturally, some learn so early that they don’t remember learning, most people have to expend some effort to learn it, some just won’t be good at something no matter how hard they try, and a few just won’t even bother to try.
So, to sum up, the prom is one event that, if you take advantage of it, could give you the experience necessary to build a group of friends in the future. If you take a pass on the prom, I highly doubt you’ll regret it, but you’ve just delayed for that much longer learning an important skill in life.
I went and am glad I did. I didn’t have a date, but rather went with another friend. When we got there, we met up with other friends. Some had dates, some didn’t. Having a date isn’t the most important part.
For me, the most memorable part was the last song of the night. About 12 of my best friends and I danced in a circle with our arms around each other to American Pie. I’m glad I went. It was one of the last times I got to see some of those people.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned the seminal 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink, which is sort of about this.
I went to my prom, but I was a second choice; my date’s date conked out at the last minute. I had to borrow the dress my mother wore to her college graduation dance in 1977, no time for hair or shoes or any of the stuff that makes the prom the prom. I don’t have any real memories of the dance itself, just that I felt horribly self-conscious because I didn’t look like the other girls.
If the 36-year-old me could talk to the 17-year-old me, I’d tell her to bag it and stay home or make alternative plans with other friends. YMMV.
Robin
Before reading this thread, I would have said you should go, because you’d surely regret it.
Now I’m not so sure. This isn’t the first time that people here have amazed me with “I hated high school” stories en masse, and yet I continue to be surprised by the concept. I wasn’t Joe Studcool in high school by any means, but I lettered in sports, I did “It’s Academic,” and was a state champion forensics speaker and debater. All of those activities gave me social contacts and context, and high school wasn’t a hellish experience for me or anyone I knew.
I had a fine time at prom, but I haven’t seen the girl I took to prom in over twenty years, and it hasn’t affected my post-high-school life at all. At the time, going made sense; like anything else in high school, though, it won’t have a huge influence on your life in 20 years.
So - if it’s worrying you, don’t go.
I went to my senior prom and wish I hadn’t. My then BF and I were not getting along but we stayed together because OMG we were SENIORS and we had to go to PROM and we were each other’s dates, of course. He got smashed and neglected me (refusing to dance, hanging around with his buddies) and I got my first taste of how truly lonely you can be in a room full of people. The chaperones told me how pretty I looked, which paradoxically struck me as the low point of the evening.
The mistake I made – which, repectfully, it sounds like you may be making – was believing that prom was Automatic Fun For Everyone! If you go => you will have a good time. Well, I went, with a guy I was more or less permanently mad at, who no longer was in love with me either, and we didn’t have a good time. Quel surprise.
You don’t have anyone you want to go with. You don’t even have anyone you think you could go with. You don’t think it would be fun to just go and hang out with your friends, because they will have dates. Frankly, it does not sound like an event at which you are likely to have any fun. Do you think you would have fun under those circumstances? And if not, why would you regret not going? Why would you regret skipping any event that is likely to be boring or otherwise not fun?
If I had asked myself that question before going – Is this an event at which I’m likely to have any fun at all? – I would not have gone to my prom, either.
The bottom line is, if it’s not your thing, then don’t go. I do however third, fourth, fifth, sixth, whatever the idea of you looking at expanding your social network a bit. Just because it’s nice to have friends and go do stuff sometimes.
Ok, I went to my prom both years. At my school it was called The Junior-Senior Prom. The Junior class put it on for the Senior class, so Junior year I was part of the set design crew and the attention whore in me just had to go so I could hear all the Seniors (it was a biiiiiiiig secret, see, they couldn’t know the theme until the night of the Prom!) ooh and ahh over our wonderful idea. Plus, in a small town, that’s where everybody I knew would be that night. What do I remember? Nuttin’. Senior year I went cause well, small town, where everybody was, it was the thing to do. So I went. What do I remember? Nuttin’. Then again, the combination of drunk/stoned probably had a lot to do with that.
A little TMI from me to y’all…
The girl I took to the Senior prom later came out as a lesbian. I’m gay. We still talk. We blame each other. 
What carnivorousplant said. Not only did I not go, I’m not entirely sure if my school only had just a senior prom or also a junior prom, to which I also would not have gone. I also managed to get out of going to my own graduation ceremony, which involved enduring about a month of being called to the office once or twice a week because I hadn’t paid for my cap/gown/pictures by people who had evidently forgotten that I had explained, just a few days ago, that I had no intention of showing up.
Having progressed in life and gotten through an undergrad degree, I believe I can safely say that the only way anyone could ever get me to go to a prom would be to throw one now, with people who can buy their own booze, solely to mock the entire tradition.
I do know people who went solely to get the pretty pictures. I convinced my parents that they wanted me to get some “glamour shots” instead. Way more fun – the glamour shots people gave me a bullwhip for a prop.
This should be treated as practice for something yet to come.
Someday in the future, maybe there will be some babe you really want to impress. So many things, like learning to make small talk or refining your manners could be important later.
If you don’t know what to say, get the other person to talk. People love to talk about themselves and by asking what their plans are for the future, many will do all the work for you.
You can also schmooze the ladies. Compliment them and you may get a very warm reception.
Overall you can approach this as if your tux is a labcoat and you’re a social scientist observing these strange humans. Make little games for yourself, like seeing how many hands you can shake or challenges like maintaining eye contact with the cutest girl while talking to her.
Yes, I’ve decided that I think you should go, unless you have something that’s really more compelling to do. If it’s a bust, okay, many nights are that way. But you can start developing more skills and may get a few nice surprises.
And if you do go, you have to report back to us!
I didn’t have a particularly great time in high school, but I don’t have a deep hatred of it either.
My best friend in HS and I double dated with a couple of our female friends. I was really clueless about girls or I would have realized that my date was into me. I just didn’t pursue her.
Anway, it’s almost 28 years ago and I hardly remember anything about the night. Given a chance to do it all over again, who knows? It wasn’t that big of a deal for me.
I went to both my high-school bf’s (year before mine) and mine.
My BF’s was okay, although he got pretty drunk and smelly.
Mine sucked.
Admittedly though, mine came about a month after I was in a terrible car accident in which a friend was killed. I was depressed and suffering from PTSD. My parents did not come together as they were at the start of their seperation, my father, who did come, was also depressed and we left right after the dinner.
Perhaps not the best mood for a “grad”.
I mostly agree with the first paragraph, but not the second. IMO, a prom at high school where you haven’t done anything with anyone outside of school since 7th grade and at which everyone has a date is about the last place on the green earth that you will get meaningful experience necessary to build a group of friends in the future. People are not making new friends at the prom; they are hanging out with the ones they already have.
I went to my junior prom, with a guy that was a friend; it was OK but mostly not that fun and let me know that I would not regret skipping my senior prom.
High school IS dumb, at least in the social sense, and the sooner people get out and into the real world, where they are judged on something other than some arbitrary coolness factor, the better.
I say don’t go, and you won’t regret it.