Annoyed Rant
May. 16th, 2005 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lls_mutantJust have to get this off my chest- not remotely HP related. Instead, it's about the local high school's prom.
I work with the youth group at church (more with the junior high, but I see a lot of the senior high as well). They're a great group of kids and all that. This past Friday night was their prom.
Most of the girls went. Cool. (Most of them actually wore very age-appropriate dresses, too. The one dress I did see was so, so pretty.) A lot of the boys skipped it and had "Halo night", which I kind of suspect they might have preferred.
But what really ticked me off was when I found out about the school's policy on tickets.
Tickets were sold only in pairs. If you DID want to buy your own, then they actually cost more to go alone. That's annoying enough right there. But the kicker? The tickets HAD to be sold to one boy/one girl couples.
ARGH!
Now, yes, I am annoyed for kids that know that they're gay or bisexual and have a partner of the same sex. But that's not the real reason I want to strangle who came up with this stupid, inane, cruel policy.
When I was in high school, our group of friends was pretty skewed. We had a lot of girls, and not so many guys. We also weren't much on dating yet. Come on- we were the socially awkward nerds. But honestly? That didn't bug us all that much. But when Prom came around, most of us went with friends. But four of the girls in my group didn't have dates. So instead of sitting at home alone or having a movie night, they teamed up and bought two sets of tickets. They went stag, as friends, dressed up, had a great time, danced with our dates (I was only too happy to lend mine out!), and we ALL had a great time. Not only were they glad they could be at our prom, WE, their friends, were glad that they were there as well.
When you restrict tickets to one boy/one girl couples, you're basically saying all these kids that don't have a date can't go, and aren't worthy of their prom. And that's really, really annoying, because honestly? Prom isn't about the perfect night or being a mini-wedding reception or even love and romance. Prom is about being with your friends for one of the last big parties before you leave high school and split up and go your own ways.
To make matters worse, the prom was held in a hotel. Not only was it in a hotel, but the kids could reserve rooms. This encourages the kids to do two things: drink illegally, and have sex. It's like BEGGING them to do both! And with the incidents of date rape on prom night- and the pressure already for kids to have sex so early- you'd think the school would really reconsider encouraging either behavior.
What happened to after-Proms? My school had an after-Prom held by the class underneath the prom's class. It was a carnival type thing, with games and drawings and more dancing and food and plenty of other activities. I remember actually having a better time at the after prom than the prom itself. And then the whole group of us (stag ladies included!) crashed for a bit at a friends' house (boys and girls in separate rooms!), and then went to Saratoga Park and had a picnic and flew kites and I think the boys launched rockets. (Look, I SAID we were geeks!)
I also remember wanting to ask a guy on the track team if he'd go to the prom with me as a friend. I got asked by my date before I could work up the guts, so I never said anything. But I found out later he'd heard that I was going to ask him, and was really disappointed I didn't. Why? Not because he had this secret crush on me or anything. No, he felt about me like I felt about him- nice person, would have been fun to go, but that would have been it. Instead, he got fixed up on a blind date and yes, the people he went with DID have a hotel room and expected him to drink and even to sleep with this girl. He had a miserable time, and thought he would have had a much better time with me, because it would have just been friends and fun, with no romantic expectations whatsoever.
Sure, it's nice to have a date for prom. But it shouldn't be required. So I'll probably write an angry letter to the school board, and encourage the kids to do the same. And when I'm done that, we're going to have a formal dinner at McDonald's so the girls can all wear those dresses again.
HA!
I work with the youth group at church (more with the junior high, but I see a lot of the senior high as well). They're a great group of kids and all that. This past Friday night was their prom.
Most of the girls went. Cool. (Most of them actually wore very age-appropriate dresses, too. The one dress I did see was so, so pretty.) A lot of the boys skipped it and had "Halo night", which I kind of suspect they might have preferred.
But what really ticked me off was when I found out about the school's policy on tickets.
Tickets were sold only in pairs. If you DID want to buy your own, then they actually cost more to go alone. That's annoying enough right there. But the kicker? The tickets HAD to be sold to one boy/one girl couples.
ARGH!
Now, yes, I am annoyed for kids that know that they're gay or bisexual and have a partner of the same sex. But that's not the real reason I want to strangle who came up with this stupid, inane, cruel policy.
When I was in high school, our group of friends was pretty skewed. We had a lot of girls, and not so many guys. We also weren't much on dating yet. Come on- we were the socially awkward nerds. But honestly? That didn't bug us all that much. But when Prom came around, most of us went with friends. But four of the girls in my group didn't have dates. So instead of sitting at home alone or having a movie night, they teamed up and bought two sets of tickets. They went stag, as friends, dressed up, had a great time, danced with our dates (I was only too happy to lend mine out!), and we ALL had a great time. Not only were they glad they could be at our prom, WE, their friends, were glad that they were there as well.
When you restrict tickets to one boy/one girl couples, you're basically saying all these kids that don't have a date can't go, and aren't worthy of their prom. And that's really, really annoying, because honestly? Prom isn't about the perfect night or being a mini-wedding reception or even love and romance. Prom is about being with your friends for one of the last big parties before you leave high school and split up and go your own ways.
To make matters worse, the prom was held in a hotel. Not only was it in a hotel, but the kids could reserve rooms. This encourages the kids to do two things: drink illegally, and have sex. It's like BEGGING them to do both! And with the incidents of date rape on prom night- and the pressure already for kids to have sex so early- you'd think the school would really reconsider encouraging either behavior.
What happened to after-Proms? My school had an after-Prom held by the class underneath the prom's class. It was a carnival type thing, with games and drawings and more dancing and food and plenty of other activities. I remember actually having a better time at the after prom than the prom itself. And then the whole group of us (stag ladies included!) crashed for a bit at a friends' house (boys and girls in separate rooms!), and then went to Saratoga Park and had a picnic and flew kites and I think the boys launched rockets. (Look, I SAID we were geeks!)
I also remember wanting to ask a guy on the track team if he'd go to the prom with me as a friend. I got asked by my date before I could work up the guts, so I never said anything. But I found out later he'd heard that I was going to ask him, and was really disappointed I didn't. Why? Not because he had this secret crush on me or anything. No, he felt about me like I felt about him- nice person, would have been fun to go, but that would have been it. Instead, he got fixed up on a blind date and yes, the people he went with DID have a hotel room and expected him to drink and even to sleep with this girl. He had a miserable time, and thought he would have had a much better time with me, because it would have just been friends and fun, with no romantic expectations whatsoever.
Sure, it's nice to have a date for prom. But it shouldn't be required. So I'll probably write an angry letter to the school board, and encourage the kids to do the same. And when I'm done that, we're going to have a formal dinner at McDonald's so the girls can all wear those dresses again.
HA!
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 02:51 pm (UTC)The after-prom was about fifteen bucks. You could go stag to that. You weren't allowed to go stag to a prom, because the prom was supposed to be the most romantic night of our young lives.
Naturally, almost everyone went to the after-prom and skipped the prom. I spent most of the after-prom shooting baskets and talking over sci-fi shows with the guys. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. And no one tried to tell me that it was a Very Special Harlequin Romance moment.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 02:59 pm (UTC)Go you with the sternly worded letters and the taking them out again.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 04:41 pm (UTC)It would never have worked at my high school, where the ratio of girls to boys was something like 4:1. A number of girls had boyfriends from different schools, but a number of us didn't, so we went as a group. (Well, I brought a boy with me, but most of my friends didn't. Looking back, I wish I'd left the boy at home. ^_^ )
Prom is about being with your friends for one of the last big parties before you leave high school and split up and go your own ways.
Exactly!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-17 02:31 am (UTC)It's beyond frustrating that people can be so stupid. And what's even worse is all the different incarnations that this stupidity is manifesting itself as lately.
Some days I really want to go and start my own country. Or just kick all of the religious fundamentalists out of this one. Because, really - Muslim theocracy has worked so well in the middle east that they want to counter it with a Christian version over here. *snort* And I honestly have nothing against religion - people can believe whatever they wish or feel. But didn't we have this big revolutionary war a couple hundred years ago so that we could escape religious persecution and keep spirituality/beliefs and politics separate? Common sense is truly dead in a large portion of today's society.
Good for you! And you should definitely write that letter to the school board!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-14 06:16 pm (UTC)The hotel thing is stupid. As you said, it's asking for trouble. A school-sponsored post-prom thing would be better. Our school didn't have one, but it also wasn't holding dances in a hotel, either.
The boy/girl ticket thing is pretty common, though, alas. A local PFLAG (I think it's them?) chapter puts on a gay prom for the entire region's high school students so they have somewhere they can go and be comfortable.
As for Prom being about a "last big party with your friends" ... I don't know. I think that depends on the kind of person you are. I wasn't a party person. Aside from Junior and Senior proms, I attended only ONE school dance in high school, and that was the first one freshman year. They just weren't really a big thing for me, and my friends felt the same. Prom was fun because it was something different - a chance to dress up and eat out and such. I never really got the feeling that going as a couple meant you were practically married, although I did want to go with someone I liked reasonably well. My junior year I went with a senior male-friend of mine (with whom I later had a friends-with-benefits thing going for a little bit); my senior year I went with a guy I was dating not-seriously, but we had a fun time anyway. I agree that more people might go and have a great time if the boy/girl requirement were not in place, and it puts less pressure on the kids to have to find 'someone' to go with.