I went to the prom my junior year. It was only one of three dances I attended during high school. I made it a strong point to go to as few as possible. I hated dressing up. I hated dancing. I hated the idea of spending money on such things. I hated the idea of overly romanticizing the idea of "high school love." Even back then I had a pretty fine grasp that most high school relationships didn't last. I was under no illusions of those lasting forever (though some people still pull off the high school sweethearts thing in this day and age).
Anyway, suffice it to say I was not overly enthralled with the concept of attending prom. But I did so for two reasons.
1. My parents strongly encouraged my participation despite my personal views on the matter, which I was quite vocal about. They insisted that I would regret not going and would appreciate the memory later. They were mostly wrong on both accounts.
2. I had a girlfriend at the time. My first girlfriend. I was trying to so hard to be good at the whole boyfriend thing so there was very little that I wouldn't do to try to make her happy. Even so, I was terrible at that.
Now that I've mentioned my girlfriend at the time, it's probably important to point out one thing: Her attraction to me was strictly predicated by her rebellious phase at the time. I wasn't her type at all and the stark contrasts between us did not provide for a cute "opposites attract" sort of deal. It was quite lopsided. Here are the contrasts:
- She was a super hot popular girl. I was a pretty ugly face in the crowd. No, this is not a play for compliment fishing. I've always struggled with severe acne. At the time, My face was smothered in thick red zits. I was taking Accutane for it so my face was also super dry, cracked and red all the time. I have pictures for proof............which I will not be posting.
- She was taller. I was short. Now she wasn't an Amazonian woman. But she had an inch or two on me. Which wasn't hard. I had stopped growing around this time.
- She was the bishop's daughter. I was fairly agnostic.
- She was social, outgoing and gregarious. I was a quiet, introverted shut-in that was cold to people I didn't know or care for.
- She was athletic. I had vowed to never ever play sports again.
- Her father wanted her to date a prospective missionary or return missionary. I was not ever going on a mission.
- Her family wanted her to date someone with goals and directions. I was playing drums for a shitty punk rock band with aspirations to do that for a career.
- She was a straight A student. I was a veteran at failing classes that bored me.
- Oh did I mention she was hot? Looking the way I did at the time didn't exactly make me a lady killer. It was as though I had been magically teleported to an alternate universe and won the jackpot for attracting women with my gross physical attributes.
You get the idea. It was clearly a rebellious phase sort of thing to piss off her parents. I didn't know that. I was comfortable with idea of thinking I had just gotten lucky. Our personalities clashed frequently. I was methodically boring. She was randomly spontaneous. I felt bad for all the fights and thought the problem was me. To make up for it, I decided to ask her to the prom knowing that is something she wanted. Plus she was finely chased. I wanted to take her so no other asshole would get the chance.
After singing her a song with my monotonous voice, she was somehow convinced either out of greed or pity to go with me. I had no idea what to do to get ready for the event. Luckily, most of my friends were old hands at this. They seemed to attend every dance ever put up by the school district. I asked for advice on tuxedos and what to wear which was just as simple as I thought it would be. Just get a fucking black and white tuxedo and make sure it fits. Perfect. But I wanted to add my own little zing for some reason. I thought it would funny to complete the ensemble with a top hat, a cane and a monocle. The tux came with a hat for an extra $10. Sold. I got the cane from a second hand store. The monocle took a bit of time but it was well worth the $60 I paid for it. She did not know any of this was coming.
I showed up to her house to pick her up in the full suit. The top hat was put on as straight as possible. The cane casually swung off the top of my forearm. My monocle was safely attached to my left eye. Her parents answered with both a look of shock and disappointment. They tried to laugh it off, but their irritation was apparent. She came down the stairs and looked wonderful. She saw me and went from excited and happy to severely annoyed. She smiled for the cameras but later said that I had to take off the extras for when we met up with her friends for fear of embarrassment. I said I wouldn't wear it the entire time, but had to at least a little since I went through the trouble of getting them. She reluctantly agreed. I was in a good mood that night. I was more outgoing and talkative than usual. I talked to her friends (whom I hated) as if I were the younger version of the Monopoly guy. I would casually make comments about the economy, various properties from the boardgame, the weather and how a stiff bottle of scotch would suit my fancies just fine.
Nobody found it funny.
I was trapped with no where to go. The one time I decided to not be the social outcast she knew and tolerated had to be at prom. Interestingly she spent a lot of time before this point trying to change my social awkwardness into being more active and fun. Apparently we had different definitions of being active and fun. As the night went on, she relaxed and didn't care about the top hat as much, but still really hated the monocle. She thought that was "just going way, way too far." The more she whined about it, the more I felt compelled to put it on. This is a $60 dollar monocle. Why in the hell would I not wear it? I can't think of a single other occasion I'll get to wear this. Rationalizing to wear it for prom was hard enough. But after that, I wouldn't get a chance to dress facetiously snotty again. I had to use it.
After a rough beginning of trying not to argue about my tuxedo accessories, we went to dinner. The dinner at some Chinese restaurant was almost a poisonous adventure. Apparently, there was nuts on just about all of their food. This led me to have a sparse dinner of salad and bread with the walnut chunks picked out. The dance was almost as awkward. I had no idea how to dance and ended up stepping on her huge dress constantly. Nothing really happened afterwards. We watched a movie at my house which we both fell asleep. I took her home at like midnight and we uneventfully parted ways. She never really forgave me for the tuxedo.
It's too bad. Because it was fucking brilliant comic genius.
