<p>Mainemom, I just had my 30th over the weekend. A fantastic time. I danced the night away, including dances with my junior & senior prom dates. Some of the graduates who were experiencing the most “awkward” stages during h.s. looked like movie stars. The cliques had disolved & everyone mingled & partied through the night. We were just a group of middle-aged friends, some more well-preserved than others, having a great time.</p>
<p>CGM: Tell your d to go have a great time. And remind her that plenty of shy guys probably wanted to ask her but were too shy to approach her.</p>
<p>CGM, If it makes you feel any better, I would be glad to go with your daughter :P</p>
<p>As StickerShock said above, alot of us are usually too nervous/shy to approach girls. The fear of rejection does a damper on us emotionally. I know just having been rejected, it hurts you alot on the inside. I know how she feels. I feel like that all the time. She’ll have a great time with her friends.</p>
<p>I also think that this kind of problem is an indication that kids outgrow HS in the middle of senior year. Your D just has to get through this last phase, and then college will be better.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom–your daughter gets to dance with whoever she wants. She won’t be “stuck” slow-dancing with some goober!</p>
<p>Just think of all the prom dates who get marooned on the dance floor (thinking of my poor date!). </p>
<p>The world is her oyster. She’ll be massaged, relaxed, and ready to rumble! She can dance or not, leave when she wants, and won’t have anyone pouting because he feels left out if she dances too many dances with some cute guy that she’s been crushing on for 2 years (oops, thinking of my poor prom date again!) :)</p>
<p>baseballmom, yep she will be…she is moving past feeling bad and looking forward to hanging with her friends, who will indeed ditch their dates, and having fun</p>
<p>my friend is coming over to take some black and white portraits of the girls…glam shots (but not tacky ones)…</p>
<p>It’s 2006. Ladies, if the guy of your dreams doesn’t ask you to the dance, then YOU ASK SOMEONE! Go with a friend, maybe a guy a year older or younger. Or go with a group of girlfriends and have a blast. My son told me one girl stood in the middle of the school hall in the morning and yelled, “OK, who wants to take me to the sophomore banquet?” A guy who was a junior friend of hers said, “What the heck, I’ll go!” They had a blast.</p>
<p>I have a son and a daughter. I’ve watched the son agonize over who to ask and when, and bit my lip when he told us she turned him down (she was already going with someone else). Why should the guys have to do all the asking - and risking rejection?</p>
<p>Lafalum, that girl has to have an enormous amount of confidence! I would never have been able to muster that courage as a 15 year old. Good for her.</p>
<p>I have been brooding about this thread a little.</p>
<p>As far as I know, no one has ever asked my daughter to a dance. She has either gone in a group – just girls, or mixed – or asked a friend to accompany her. For that matter, I’m not certain my son has ever gone to a dance with someone he asked, and I know he’s never gone to a dance with the first person he’s asked. It never occurred to me to get either of them a consolatory massage. I’m sure they’ve both felt hurt – more daughter than son, this really isn’t a problem area for him – but I’ve never wanted to buy into the Big Deal Dance idea. And, honestly, I don’t think either of them has ever thought the Dance was a Big Deal.</p>
<p>I get terribly annoyed at the mythification of proms, etc. I don’t think I know anyone who has had anything like a magical prom experience. Mostly it seems like a bizarre buildup of unreasonable expectations fueled more by media and marketing cliches than by anything organic to kids’ lives. The expense is often horrific. It seems like the best one can hope for is not too much trauma beforehand and only a mild letdown at the actual event. I don’t want to do anything that indicates that I think these dances are meaningful in any way.</p>
<p>Not that I’m the Prom Grinch. I shell out money. I facilitate transportation. I praise my daughter’s dress and makeup choices and those of her friends; I taught my son how to tie a bowtie and I fix it after he gives up. I take pictures. I never immolated my daughter’s DVD of “Pretty In Pink”. But I don’t make a big deal of things, and I don’t do anything they don’t ask me to do (except for reminding my son to order a corsage and to get his tux cleaned – it was my father’s tux, and mine, before him).</p>
<p>Am I just being an obtuse male? Is there anyone else who wonders whether it’s the best thing to promote compensatory pampering in a situation like this?</p>
<p>JHS, I agree 100%, so it’s not being an obtuse male that makes you feel this way. But girls do put more importance on proms. They love the glamor, dress-up aspect of the event. Most boys would probably show up in their sweats if it was allowed. I’ve seen boys in tuxes and white socks. They don’t give a hoot. Girls shop for weeks to find the perfect accessory from head to toe. Salon trips, manicures, facials. In contrast, most boys probably comb their hair before heading out. I’m kind of a minimalist by nature with this stuff.</p>
<p>A compensatory pampering? I’m not criticizing it, because I think it’s a matter of parenting style combined with the disposition of your kid. Our family operates more in the “suck it up & get over it” – “count your blessings” mindframe. If I hadn’t been asked to the prom my mom probably would have said, “You can’t go dance? It’s disappointing, but think of the people in the world who don’t have feet.”</p>
<p>I will play it down when d is heading to proms. But as I posted above, I was really enjoying the old memories that dancing with my prom dates at my reunion brought back. Sometimes the proms are meaningful. In fact, I was hanging out with three girlfriends at the reunion who were attending with their junior prom dates. All celebrated their 25th wedding anniversaries this year.</p>
<p>My kids’ school has tons of kids who don’t date throughout high school. Go out in coed groups (that may include some couples), and attend somewhat wild co-ed parties, yes, but don’t do the one-on-one boyfriend and girlfriend thing. Anyway, for prom, traditionally, bunches of senior girls invite junior boys who are their friends but not their boyfriends. And if a girl felt at all as if she wasn’t dating because of some personal deficiency, it was always possible to point to several of her classmates who were undiputably gorgeous and wonderful who also weren’t dating. I can see that a girl who felt alone and isolated in her status as a dateless promgoer might feel weird inviting a younger guy she liked, but if you get a critical mass…</p>
<p>Aww - that must hurt for your daughter I didn’t get asked by anyone to my prom (long story) but I ended up going, having a blast, and finding a special boy to dance the night away with that had also come in a big mixed group! We never would have hooked up if it hadn’t been for each of us deciding early on, screw it, I’ll just go and have fun with my friends!</p>
<p>welll, D is all fine with it, and then friend came over and were talking about stuff, and another friend who is selling tickets mentioned a girl with a cute outfit who was buying her ticket and first “friend” says,“what she couldn’t get a date??? how lame”, while my D is sitting right there</p>
<p>thoughtless doesn’t even come close to this girl</p>
<p>I just said, not having a date is fine, and the girls should buy their own tickets for this dance anyway…so 'friends" comment just kinds of rubs it in a bit, even if you are okay</p>
<p>CGM, I would be upset for my daughter as well, although I know from experience there isn’t much you can do. I put way more energy into these dances than I should because neither of my S’s has ever had a girlfriend (supposedly too much work), so the annual homecoming dance and proms are the ONLY times I get to see Ss with a girl other than in a group. </p>
<p>In S1’s group everybody took care of everybody else to make sure nobody ended up dateless, even if it meant borrowing someone from another school. The guys all felt honor bound to make sure every girl was asked and the girls all felt honor bound to accept the first invitation even if not their ideal. They did get together beforehand at a house for pictures in a group of about 8-10 couples, then restaurant, then dance, then after dance party. It was wonderful, from my perspective. And S1 always spent a good amount of time on his “look”.</p>
<p>Then it all fell apart with S2 last year. As a freshman, he asked three girls who all turned him down saying they preferred to go stag. This is a kid who is popular (football player, lifeguard, out every week-end!). He did not go to the dance but went to one of the after dance parties and all these girls were asking why he didn’t go to the dance. I was very upset that they weren’t willing to go as his date just so they could keep their options open, although he shrugged it off (or appeared to). This year he got a date after only one invitation, but none of his friends were able to get dates having each been turned down by at least one girl. (And these are also popular guys on the football team!) The group of sixteen who gathered at our house for pictures included two couples and rest an EVEN mix of single boys and single girls. Since when does a date have to be the love of your life. I guess I am just old fashioned. </p>
<p>The good news for your D is that girls going stag to these dances seems to be an ever popular trend at our school and is being done by the most popular girls so they can play the field. Your D will not be seen as someone who couldn’t get a date, but someone who chose not to be tied down.</p>
<p>IMO, kids take their cues from their parents in much larger measure than we think. If you’re on here posting about this because you’re so concerned, and every little comment a girlfriend says about the dance bothers <em>you</em>, it’s no wonder to me your daughter is upset. And the massage just makes it seem like some sort of catastrophe you’re trying to make up for. I would’ve told my daughter to get a bunch of friends together for that night and do something else. That’s what my son did with girls and guy friends who were dateless for some of the dances. I’m sure you won’t care for my opinion, cgm, but then again, when have you ever? :)</p>
<p>hh, wow, that was harsh…I vent here…and have been thankful for every post </p>
<p>as for the massage, she has been asking for one for months and I thought this would be the perfect time</p>
<p>and I posted because I know others have Ds and Ss going through the same thing, and sometimes it is good to get out your feelings when you feel sad for your child</p>
<p>my D did feel bad all on her own, imagine that, a teen girl feeling sad that all her friends had dates and she didn’t…and her friends making her feel worse with all their pre-dance plans…so, what a bad mommy I was to do something special for her and another girl…wow, what a bad message I sent by saying, hey, have fun, and enjoy getting pampered</p>
<p>I feel that it is important to support the school dances, as do both my Ds…they know they only have so many in their lifetimes, and it is a chance to dress up, get their makeup done, eat out, have some great pictures and dance</p>
<p>After “friend” left, my D told her sister what she said and sister was like, that was harsh, and cold</p>
<p>So please, enough with the snide little remarks, HH…my last post was more about the meanness of girls than anything else</p>
<p>My S must be in the minority because he takes a lot of care in planning for dances, coordinating his pocket square to the girl’s dress/picking out the corsage and I think genuinely enjoys the dance. He usually waits too long IMO before asking if a girl wants to go to the dance and hasn’t been turned down yet so maybe last minute/week asking is a good strategy.</p>
<p>That said, in the group that met at our house for the party bus/pictures, (about 20 kids) only about six were couples and the rest were singles. All seemed to have a good time.</p>
<p>The ringleader and the girl who organized the bus was happily dateless. She’s a very popular girl but dateless is not a stigma here but a choice. More options I guess!</p>
<p>Stag is not an option in our town. If you’re not invited to the ball or you don’t have a date, you can’t go. For that reason, it is unheard of for girls to turn guys down–and vica versa–unless they have another date in the pocket. Still, there are a bunch of kids who do not get invites and there are those who rely on the kindness of classmates to find them dates.</p>
<p>I didn’t get asked to any high school dances, citygirlsmom. And that was back when kids were not encouraged to go in same-sex groups. So I stayed home, and it was hard. But . . . I’ve had a fantastic life! Didn’t start to date a lot until I was in graduate school. Let’s hear it for late bloomers!</p>
<p>The other thing – be careful what you wish for. High school dating is not what it was thirty years ago. Many of the kids that look like they’re having fun are getting way too serious too soon, with great pain not far ahead (In the past two years in our community there have been at least three suicide attempts on the part of boys whose girlfriends “dumped” them. One succeeded, two years ago Thanksgiving week.)</p>
<p>The pressure to be socially successful hardly ends when high school ends. If anything, it in some ways gets worse, because if you dont succeed with the opposite sex, you dont have your best friends from high school to fall back on when it comes time to make weekend plans.</p>
I didn’t get asked by anyone to my prom (long story) but I ended up going, having a blast, and finding a special boy to dance the night away with that had also come in a big mixed group! We never would have hooked up if it hadn’t been for each of us deciding early on, screw it, I’ll just go and have fun with my friends!</p>