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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsDid you ever go to a Prom in High School. I didn't. Wasn't asked. How about you? I finally got to go to two when I
Last edited Sat Jan 31, 2026, 03:17 PM - Edit history (1)
taught High School for two years.
sinkingfeeling
(57,463 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)OLDMDDEM
(3,065 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)regnaD kciN
(27,529 posts)Our boarding school didnt have one, probably because they had only recently changed from being boys-only, and the male-to-female student ratio was still only about 4:1. Dont know if that changed as the ratio moved closer to 50-50. (It was over half-a-century ago.)
debm55
(57,400 posts)CanonRay
(16,016 posts)We'd been together 2 years at that point. We are still close friends 56 years later.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Wicked Blue
(8,654 posts)Never got asked on a date, never even got asked to dance at a dance.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Vinca
(53,503 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)Deuxcents
(25,889 posts)I should write a book
debm55
(57,400 posts)Deuxcents
(25,889 posts)Married after their divorce. No dancing, music, movies, friendships were hard to make but like all kids, had to be resourceful when I turned into the teens n I had to be! Ive read a lot of your posts and yep, we made it! 🌺
debm55
(57,400 posts)LoisB
(12,502 posts)dress for senior prom even though I was asked.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Rich and I are going to go.
LoisB
(12,502 posts)2naSalit
(100,778 posts)High school, never went to a prom.
debm55
(57,400 posts)2naSalit
(100,778 posts)I wasn't interested in proms and all that anyway.
debm55
(57,400 posts)lpbk2713
(43,254 posts)Haven't been to any reunions either.
debm55
(57,400 posts)act like I am glad to see them.My 50th reunion was 3 years ago. I didn't go.
anciano
(2,213 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)mother set up without asking me ,made me feel very sad.
oberle
(291 posts)who later on kept trying to stick his tongue in my throat. I was too grossed out to date for the next 3 years.
Response to oberle (Reply #14)
Dear_Prudence This message was self-deleted by its author.
Dear_Prudence
(1,095 posts)Too awful to recount.
debm55
(57,400 posts)AllaN01Bear
(28,800 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)AllaN01Bear
(28,800 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,780 posts)I wasn't asked, but I had no particular interest in going to a school dance anyway. I was generally a poor fit for the social life at my high school.
debm55
(57,400 posts)figured that I wasn't pretty enough to be asked. Stupid of me. I did have male friends but they had younger girlfriends.
Borogove
(567 posts)debm55
(57,400 posts)LuckyCharms
(22,146 posts)My girlfriend was a year older than me, and she went to a different high school.
So I went to hers one year, and mine the next.
Don't ask me how it happened, but I had to pay the tux rental company a pretty good amount of money (at the time), because I lost my tie and vest when I took her to her prom.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Aristus
(71,841 posts)I went to very few of them. I don't know if you had Tolo at your school. Tolo is where the girl asks the guy to the dance. Due to my vast unpopularity, no one asked me to Tolo in all three years of high school.
When I was a senior, I asked a girl I had had a crush on since sophomore year to the Senior Prom. She turned me down. I later found out that she turned me down because she was hoping my younger brother, who was just a sophomore that year, would ask her. He didn't. Still, very embarrassing.
I was a hot mess in high school.
I'm not one of those toxic assholes who insists that military service "will make a man out of you". But a couple of good things resulted. I became more physically fit. And I wore my hair, by necessity, in a shorter, much more flattering style. My strikeouts with women were soon a thing of the past.
biophile
(1,281 posts)Trust me on this. Lots of people across the popularity spectrum hated high school
debm55
(57,400 posts)Aristus
(71,841 posts)Ocelot II
(129,659 posts)At the time it was the biggest disappointment in the world.
debm55
(57,400 posts)alternative was worse.
Ocelot II
(129,659 posts)livetohike
(24,064 posts)because the I had a weekend long job interview to be a summer camp counselor. I didnt get the job.
walkingman
(10,448 posts)wcmagumba
(5,785 posts)She was in the class behind mine...so two Proms for me...woo hoo...
ProfessorGAC
(76,057 posts)I didn't have a girlfriend at that time but this girl from another grade school I had known since 5th grade didn't have a prom date.
Our prom & the one for her HS were on the same Saturday, so we went to both.
Went to dinner afterward with my gang.
It was a date, but not romantic. Just a couple friends taking the opportunity to go together.
I was a junior & I left after that year for college, so I wasn't around for prom as a senior.
hedda_foil
(16,933 posts)It was very nice to have a steady boyfriend when it prom rolled around.
Bayard
(28,929 posts)My best friend fixed me up with her dream boat cousin. My Mom altered my sister's old prom dress to fit me.
I was such a scared little mouse back then. I couldn't say two words without turning bright red. We were poor, and my Mom made most of my clothes. Shades of, "Carrie."
It did a lot for my ego afterwards to have even snooty cheerleaders come up and say--you were the best looking couple there. Who was that guy?
Americanme
(422 posts)It was in the Federal Center ballroom (now known as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center), it was really nice, had a live band. The building was originally the Kellogg Sanitarium, really fancy. Made us kids feel grown up. The other local high schools had their proms in their gyms.
TexasBushwhacker
(21,116 posts)Another guy friend said it sounded like fun, so he asked one if our female friends. I drove us all in the family station wagon. We had a blast. No romance. No pressure.
The Blue Flower
(6,392 posts)I'm a professional wallflower.
sakabatou
(45,882 posts)Large, loud parties give me anxiety.
debm55
(57,400 posts)sakabatou
(45,882 posts)Boy, being on the spectrum sure makes things swell
lonely bird
(2,807 posts)Went to my girlfriends. She was two years younger.
High school was not fun for me.
debm55
(57,400 posts)College was way better.
sdfernando
(6,034 posts)We had it at Sea World in San Diego.
debm55
(57,400 posts)sdfernando
(6,034 posts)not the after-prom, which I did not attend.
Sea World was closed for our event. They put on a few of the shows and we cloud walk around freely.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Demobrat
(10,270 posts)doing whiskey shots with the girls in the restroom. Guess I wasnt a very good date.
debm55
(57,400 posts)gay texan
(3,180 posts)Was pressured by my parents to go, and i didn't give a damn. To this day i still don't see the point in it.
debm55
(57,400 posts)was never asked, but told I would do it., We were in the same town, same grade. She was the one guys loved to date. Cheerleader, big boobs.and 3X Homecoming queen. I was told by the "in" crowd" that I was the Ugly cousin. It hurt.The funny thing was at our 50th reunion I was at told by my cousin that the committee placed her at the table still with the "in" crowd. Don't those people ever leave high school. LOL. I am glad I didn't go.After high school there was no reason to be in the "in" crown. Contrary to what my parents thought.
debm55
(57,400 posts)woodsprite
(12,558 posts)I have absolutely no desire to go to an all class reunion. The 'mean girls' ran the student government and are the ones who usually run the reunions. They almost got away with stealing my purse the night of the Ball & Banquet. My future hubby followed them into the ladies room taking the Vice Principal with him. They made the girls pick the contents of my purse out of the trash. Apparently they just wanted my beaded purse or to ruin my evening but they were the ones that got kicked out of the banquet.
I figure anybody from high school that I've ever wanted to stay in touch with are friends with me on Facebook - everybody else can kiss my rear!
debm55
(57,400 posts)reunion before backing out. PS. My cousin was one of those mean girls.
kimbutgar
(26,963 posts)And the two guys I went with both turned out to be gay but they were my friends and I had a good time anyway.
I went to one with a set up boring date. And 1 other with my boyfriend who was a senior in high school while I was a freshman in college. I dressed in a sassy sexy light purple slimmery dress because he went to public school and no nuns werent there to disapprove! I still have a picture of myself in that dress and wow I was pretty hot as a young lass! But, my Dad wasnt too happy about that dress though !
debm55
(57,400 posts)Permanut
(8,096 posts)Dances, movies, parties, and Junior and Senior proms. She was my high school sweet heart, and I envisioned a life with her.
Didn't work out that way. She broke up with me after high school in what was still the most painful night of my life. That was 62 years ago.
Took a long time to recover. Life is, as they say, a long and winding road; my life now includes my little partner of 38 years. She knows nothing about the story I've just told; there is no reason to go back there.
debm55
(57,400 posts)journey with you true love. I had a situation very similar to yours. I never thought I could love again.or wanted to. Please give Mrs. Permanut a hug for me. Blessings to you both.
3catwoman3
(28,804 posts)This would have been 1966. Unlike current and recent times, there was no all day primping and getting one's hair and makeup done at a salon.
My mom was a neat freak, and we spent the whole damn day cleaning the whole damn house from one end to the other because my date was going to come into the living room for maybe 5 minutes to get pictures taken. And I do mean every room in the house, all but one of which he was not going to see! I was surprised we didn't polish the silver.
debm55
(57,400 posts)Dulcinea
(9,820 posts)We double-dated with one of my best friends & her boyfriend. Remember wrist corsages? Hers was so big it began to attract bees & she had to get rid of it!
Tikki
(15,060 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 31, 2026, 11:57 PM - Edit history (1)
He and his Grandmother always made my corsages. They were beautiful.
The Tikkis
fargone
(568 posts)I moved to a new high school as a Junior and quickly found a girlfriend who was a year behind me. The prom was restricted to juniors and seniors so we never considered going that year. That summer she moved to a different town 60 miles away. My senior year I wanted to take her but another rule blocked it. Prom attendees had to be from our school. Didn't matter that she had been in the school system 6 years longer than me and knew more of the kids than I did. Friends tried to talk me into taking someone else but I didnt want to. We got married after college and have been married 55 years.
thucythucy
(9,048 posts)Couldn't afford to get dressed up. Besides which I was expelled my senior year of high school and threatened with arrest if I showed myself on school grounds.
I was able to graduate though, thanks to the intervention of the school psychologist and two very cool and understanding teachers.
But I spent most of my senior year cutting class and hanging out with runaways.
Ah, my wasted youth!
debm55
(57,400 posts)IbogaProject
(5,683 posts)Tiny private school class if 16, 9-12th grades all went. I got set up w a friend of a classmate thank you Liz.
Mme. Defarge
(8,933 posts)Never asked. But travelled to another city where a guy I had a crush on was performing in his colleges production of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey into Night. Would not have traded that for date to a prom no matter who may have wanted me to be his date.
LogDog75
(1,152 posts)I wasn't into sports, clubs, or other activities. I preferred to remain home after school. I wasn't antisocial but I just didn't care t be around people very much. Back then, I viewed most people as being phonies and proms were their attempt to act lie an adult. Looking back, I don't regret not going to prom. I don't think I missed anything.
hunter
(40,434 posts)Quitting high school at sixteen for college was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. I'm not sure I would have survived any more high school. A few kids in our high school didn't. Prom wasn't even on my radar.
Curiously I was allowed to attend a graduation even though I hadn't satisfied all the requirements to graduate, mostly because my grandmother had cancer and wanted to see at least one of her grandchildren graduate. The school administration may have signed off on that because I was already enrolled in college. It felt very odd graduating ahead of my own classmates.
I got a lot of pressure from some adults to finish high school, mostly people who thought it would be essential to my social development or something. I had no social development then, I was weird autistic spectrum kid and would remain weird for a few more years.
I sometimes have dreams that some powerful authority is forcing me to complete high school and they are not listening to arguments that I'm a college graduate who has taught high school himself, so I guess the experience was somewhat traumatic for me. They've usually got me sitting in some pre-algebra class for juniors and seniors in spite of the fact I took algebra in the eighth grade.