LogFAQs > #876001830

Tropic_Sunset posted...

I'd rather just not go to Prom.

Which is what I did.

This.



JTekashiro posted...

Why didn't you go to prom? My money says "no date and no friends."

I personally didn't go because I've always found the entire concept of prom kind of stupid. All it really is is an awkward school dance where everyone has to pay a ton of money for formal wear and a limo (which was pretty much required where I went to school), and ultimately have a mediocre time. There are far better ways to spend your time and money.

The REAL fun is at the prom afterparties anyway. It was pretty much tradition in my school that everyone would head down to the beach for the weekend after prom, share hotel rooms, indulge in a fair amount of underage drinking, and engage in impulsive and ill-considered hook-ups (at least one of which nearly plunged our town into a West Side Story-esque gang war afterwards, good times). Also, there was go-karting and minigolf, and how can you not love that?

I had way more fun doing that than I ever would have had at prom. And since I didn't have to GO to prom to go to the afterparties, it was win-win.

It wasn't really a money issue (my parents could easily have paid for everything, and almost certainly would have if I'd wanted to go), and it wasn't a "no date" issue (I was dating someone at the time, and she didn't want to go either). It also wasn't a "no friends" issue, because I had plenty of friends in high school (and hung out with most of them that weekend).

Prom sort of falls into the same category as homecoming for a lot of schools, as well into the same category as things like sweet sixteen or cotillion do sociologically - they haven't really been relevant or meaningful for decades, and at this point it's really only social inertia that keeps them existing at all.

Class reunions are starting to fall into that category as well, with modern technology making it easier than ever to stay in touch with the people you actually want to remember from high school while ignoring the others. In an era when 90% of the people you went to school with are all on Facebook anyway, there really isn't much reason to arrange a special formal dinner occasion to bring everyone together (and charge upwards of $100 per person).

People love the IDEA of prom because the media has repeatedly drummed the idea that prom is in some way important or meaningful into people's heads for years, but it really isn't. You aren't missing anything if you don't go, and you won't spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn't (unless you're living a very, very sad life).


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