The LA Times has an article on teens inviting dates to school dances in creative, elaborate ways. Don’t they know that this has been going on for yeeeears? Like, since I was in high school ten years ago?
In 2002, a boy asked my friend to prom by giving her a big fish tank filled with fish. “Out of all the fish in the sea, you’re the only one for me,” the accompanying note said. Another friend made lots of enormous cookies that spelled out the question: Will you go to prom with me?
When I was in the 11th grade, I went to Santa Clara with my school’s Future Business Leaders of America for a national conference. On the second day, our faculty adviser pulled Gloria, one of my hotel roommates, out of a session. Later that evening, when I went back to our room, I noticed that it was a lot cleaner than we had left it that morning. I also saw the trail of rose petals that led up to my bed, where there were more roses. Sitting in the middle of all the flowers was a teddy bear and a note. It was one of those Build-A-Bear teddies, the one where you squeeze a body part and a recorded message plays out. The fact that I didn’t know what was going on until I opened the note shows how oblivious I was to such things. I was also mortified to discover, all of a sudden, that there were lots of people in the hotel room by this time, including the senior boy who had devised the whole thing and the teacher who had helped him.
The card said something really sweet about wanting to go to prom with me. And the bear — the bear’s message I’ve completely blocked from my memory. (I couldn’t bear to throw it away though, so it stayed in the corner of my closet for years).
If I had had time to think about it, I would have said yes and gone to prom with this boy, who was so nice and smart and obviously thoughtful. But I was shocked and taken aback and embarrassed to be in the spotlight like that. I felt duped (by the faculty adviser and my friend) rather than cheerfully surprised. Later, I heard that the boy ended up skipping the dance.
But karma has its ways, though, because by the time my own senior prom rolled around, I was in for it. I went with someone I absolutely did not care for, had a fight with a girlfriend that left us not speaking to each other for years, and went home early and sad.
i still think it’s a miracle that i have friends from high school
because i kind of truly hated most of it. seriously, those first three years were spent in agony. i wasn’t smart enough. i wasn’t korean enough. i wasn’t cute enough. on top of not being all those things, i wasn’t even clever. and i didn’t know how to cuss nor did i drink or smoke. in short, i was just average, which is about the worst thing to be when you’re a teenager.
but i finally started coming into my own senior year. much of that was due to the realization that just because i went to school with a lot of korean kids, i did not need to be friends with any or all of them. my social life might have been made a whole lot more enjoyable if i had just realized this freshman year, but i’m a slow learner.
to look at the silver lining, i had dinner with two very dear friends tonight to celebrate a birthday. we’ve been friends for 12 years, and it’s been a wonderful, fun and sometimes wild ride. i love that we have practically nothing in common with each other but have no shortage of things to opine about. that’s the beauty of friendship, isn’t it?
