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<p>Lots of guys simply have little interest in proms, especially if it is going to cost them an arm and a leg to rent a tux, help pay for a limo, pay for dinner, etc. </p>
<p>I personally think that it is unfortunate that prom has become so overblown as an event. Limos, hotels, and dinners…for decades proms were held in gyms that were decorated by the students.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I hope your D gets a favorable response soon! :)</p>
<p>This may help you and your daughter a little bit.</p>
<p>I just went to my tenth high school reunion in Dallas. I was talking to a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen since graduation. She’s a lawyer with a big firm in Chicago. She’s utterly beautiful, and any high school awkwardness she may have had, she’s long since outgrown. (I remember her as being wildly popular, though.) She’s happily married to a sweetheart of a midwesterner, they’ve got a beautiful condo and an adorable puppy, she loves her job, and she’s just livin’ the life.</p>
<p>This spectacular young woman was standing with me and my husband, looking at a bunch of high school memorabilia that had been laid out on a table. She chuckled, and pointed at the Homecoming Mum.</p>
<p>“This’ll be fun for you,” she said, as she turned to her husband, “Do you know what this is? This is what we call a ‘Homecoming Mum’ (she used quotey-fingers here). They don’t have these in the Midwest, but they were EVERYTHING in Texas. Boys would give them to girls that they liked when they took them to the Homecoming football game. Do you know how many ‘Homecoming Mums’ (quotey-fingers) I got when I was in high school?” She smiled sweetly, and just a little bit sarcastically.</p>
<p>Her husband shook his head, no.</p>
<p>She held up her hand and made a zero out of it. “Zeeeeero. No boys liked me.” She laughed a laugh filled with ease and comfort, and smiled a smile like the cat who ate the canary.</p>
<p>Senior daughter never asked to prom. Grew up and blossomed into an absolute supermodel of a legal genius. Lived a life of love, happiness, and success.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry just yet! :)</p>
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<p>I am sure that is not true. She is trying her best to pretend that she doesn’t care and her pain is going to be re-routed to you. A fight with your mom is easier than facing your heartbreak. </p>
<p>Hang in there. Don’t start doubting yourself and try to look past prom weekend. </p>
<p>And come back here to vent your frustrations so you can be ready to be a comfort to your dd.</p>
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<p>See my post #33.</p>
<p>Could be you’re projecting your sadness on to her and you really need to be careful about this. The comment about her friend being insensitive was wrong, unless you were validating your daughter’s feelings that she had already articulated to you. </p>
<p>I think it’s incredibly mature of her to want to let go of it and be supportive of her friend.</p>
<p>Regarding the night of prom, be very careful about how you go about making plans. Ask her first if she wants to plan something… if you plan something without her asking, it will be another reminder to her that you’re trying to fix her situation, which would insinuate that you think there’s something wrong with her. If she doesn’t want to do anything other than sit at home and watch rented movies, then don’t argue or try to ‘one-up’ what the prom kids may be doing. In fact, at our school, kids who don’t attend prom often are included at private post-prom parties held in the parent’s home. I know when we held a post-prom sleep over, we (with advanced knowledge) welcomed a few kids who had not gone to prom, but wanted to hang out with the kids afterwards. If one thing, prom is always an excuse to stay up all night with your friends, many of whom you’re about to part ways with after graduation.</p>
<p>I agree w/teriwtt 100% in post 124 (I didn’t got back and read the previous post, but I’d proably agree with that, too).</p>
<p>All you can do is leave it alone. Anything you try may backfire. Girls like that are priceless and when the right guy comes along it’ll be forever.
Jordan</p>
<p>Update : the young man my daughter asked turned her down… she was the THIRD girl who asked him.</p>
<p>She is not sure she wants to go alone, but she is leaning against it.</p>
<p>At her school, all the kids have to take buses… and there are no hotels as half of the kids board at the school.</p>
<p>Unfortunately her prom is on the last day of finals ( a wednesday) so i cant take her to the city.</p>
<p>But …i told her i will buy her a super snazzy dress for senior night which is the next night.</p>
<p>other then the perky body… with skin with more elasticity… i wouldnt want to be 17 again if you paid me. LOL! sigh</p>
<p>One more here whose pretty daughter was never asked out in high school. She did have a few dates in 10th grade with a boy she met at camp that SHE approached, but other than that it was strictly group outings. Fortunately prom is more group than not at their school.</p>
<p>Fall of her freshman year of college she met a fabulous young man through swing dance club; a few months after they met he asked her out, and they are a very happy couple 18 months later.</p>
<p>I am glad we didn’t have to worry about boyfriend drama while she was in high school. Someone will see how special your D is soon enough!</p>
<p>The answer is don’t try to live through your kid.</p>
<p>Posted too soon. Obviously every parent has the tendency to do that but very often the importance of something is far different for the kid than for the parent. Best not to get involved except if the subject is directly broached by the kid…especially this subject.</p>
<p>my daughter, also a senior, was your daughter up until about January of this year. She saw plenty of other girls with boyfriends, etc. and no one ever asked her out and I kept telling her not to worry, etc…I didn’t have a “boyfriend” until I was a senior (if you could call it a boyfriend LOL) and she just kinda went with it, but it ended up that she did start “going out” with a guy she had met at work several months before…and they ended up going to prom together, etc. </p>
<p>It will eventually happen for her, when the time is right. 
Its hard to watch them go thru it though.</p>
<p>When I was in high school back in the late '60’s and early 1970’s, I’d guess that half of my class, and possibly more, graduated without ever having had a date. (Maybe that’s why they didn’t even bother having a prom our year! Of course, proms were considered kind of retrograde at the time, anyway.) In fact, horrifyingly embarrassing as it is to admit, I never went out with anyone until I was 26 years old. (Hides in shame. Of course, there were reasons.) And, yet, I somehow ended up married for a rather long time, and in another relationship of four or five years after my marriage ended, and a parent. And so did most of my high school classmates, from what I know. High school isn’t forever. Just as your four year old son still wearing pull-ups didn’t go off to college that way, no matter what you may have thought at the time!</p>
<p>My son (who’s gay) did go to the prom when he was a high school senior, as part of a group of friends. Yes, one girl was technically his “date,” but that was just a formality to comply with the rules. He had a great time, dancing up a storm with all sorts of people. (Someone posted a bunch of photos on facebook, and I was quite impressed!)</p>
<p>Obviously, though, the absence of any potential romantic partners for him, and being relegated to the inherently subservient (or at least satellite) role of “straight girls’ close friend and confidante,” was <em>not</em> easy for him emotionally, ever. As is true for so many LGBT kids at that age. (Generally, I find the entire TV/movie stereotype of the straight woman and her “gay husband/best friend,” always there to hold her hand and give advice on fashion and romance – but never a true equal, never at the center of things himself – to be painfully condescending. I can’t even watch things like that anymore, and my son and a lot of his friends feel pretty much the same way.)</p>
<p>Maybe I can blame this on the rise of more meaningless electronic social interaction/ random hook-ups and less real dating in high school. Virtually anyone with any social standing in my NJ high school circa mid 60s had at least one or more steady relationships during junior/senior years and there were very few surprises at the Prom–you knew who would be there with who. Random hook-ups were rare and only for girls commonly known to be “sluts” back then. No girl with any social standing would or could be a slut. Just mutually exclusive. But even most of the harder slutty looking girls had regular boyfriends of the “greaser” boy group and they went to prom too. You pretty much had to be a total geek not to be with somebody and not to go to prom. Today there seems to be much less social dating one on one. Group stuff is not very good for getting into longterm relationships.</p>
<p>But why in the world should high school kids be getting into long-term relationships? We all know SOME high-school relationships that worked, long-term, but they seem like the exception, not the rule, everywhere. The only argument I can see for “long-term” high school relationships is that they allow kids to make all sorts of massive long-term relationship errors in a context where it actually doesn’t matter very much. Sort of like a pre-season game or scrimmage, where it doesn’t go on your record and the coaches are right there all the time.</p>
<p>I always thought group stuff was better. I was a lot like the kids in Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco.</p>
<p>DonnaL: You know that stereotype swings both ways, right? My daughter is somewhat stuck in the role of “straight wife/best friend” to a gay couple. They ARE her best friends, but she is never a true equal or at the center of things herself, although they are very nice about sometimes pretending that she is. In any event, it certainly isn’t something mean that they do to her. And doing things with gay guys doesn’t exactly mean “the absence of any potential romantic partners for [her]”. </p>
<p>(In fact, I’m not certain about how they all met, and in what order, but it may be that the gay couple met by separately being friends with two straight girls who were friends with each other.)</p>
<p>(In another irony, my daughter and Gay Boy 1 first met when she helped not-yet-out Gay Boy 1 pick out the corsage for his high school prom date at the flower shop where she worked.)</p>
<p>My D, too, never has had a boyfriend. Career, education-focused so most high school boys are scared of her. Other moms say how lucky I am that I never had to go thru the “boy crazy stage” but I am a little sad that I will not get to be there in case she needs to talk. She is leaving for college in three months and I hope she picks up the phone/texts when she is sad/happy/concerned/scared, etc. over a relationship.</p>
<p>The group dating in Metro seemed silly and meaningless. A LT high school relationship might be 6 months or so but at least you have time to develop some depth and meaning and work out how you relate to others on an emotional level. All the kids in Metro just looked like spoiled flighty brats to me. Also for most it’s the counterpoint of boy crazy which to me implies flighty and shallow…</p>
<p>So today my daughter came home from school and told me that she & 2 other friends are gonna go over to her best friends house to help her with her hair & makeup before the prom on saturday then come back to the house & watch movies. I sat there in shock thinking “lets just pour salt in the wound” but she wants to be supportive and says that she is now over it. That a group of other girls are going and asked if she wanted to but she declined saying that if she didn’t have a date she would enjoy then she rather stay at home. I guess it’s all her decision. She’ll be away at college in a few months and will have to make her own choices anyway, so I’m learning to just keep quiet and be supportive…Hopefully no more blow ups!! With a 19 yr old, 17 yr old and 13 yr old we are living in the “Haunted House of Hormones”!!!</p>
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<p>And you should be thinking, “Wow, what a mature daughter I have; I’m so proud of her.”</p>
<p>Really, you need to let go of it. She has figured out how to handle it on her own.</p>
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<p>I’m really surprised she would not want to go with friends. A lot of kids do that here, even kids who are in a LT relationship with go with a group of friends who are not in relationships. I know some schools still insist on one boy/one girl but since they are not salt shakers nor trying to concieve a child, I don’t understand the pressure to be a set.</p>
<p>The idea that my child’s happiness would rest with waiting for someone else to take action is not something I’m comfortable with. Further, I think young women especially need to be taught that they are equals in realtionships, right from the start.</p>
<p>By the way, my responses may seem self-righteous, but let me reassure you that I only say these things because I recognize a little bit of myself in your response. One of my biggest weaknesses is not being able to let go of things when someone has hurt me (or my kids). It is my daughters who have taught me more about forgiveness and letting go of things, which is why I suggest you follow her lead in this.</p>