The Prom Is For Girls and Gays

Here we are again. I'm hearing about The Prom again.

Every year now, I note this ritual, which has become another day, along with "Sweet Sixteen" (or other birthdays for certain cultures, at 13, 15, etc.) and wedding days (the the related events) that are all about feeding the narcissism and sense of entitlement of attention-whores and attention-whores-in-training.

Refer back to my "Beware the Prom", and this look at a Dear Abby column, and this look at a different Dear Abby column and now this entry on increasingly showy proposals ("promposals") for dates.

Stop it, guys! Unless you're gay and want to rub it into the noses of some uptight school staff or parents by taking someone of the same sex, you don't really want to go to a dance, do you? You don't really want to take girl to the prom, do you?

It a nutshell, here are my problems with the prom as it is these days:

1) Boys wasting money.

2) Another event where females are princess-ized, which is a problem as long as males are prevented, culturally/socially and often legally, from events that cater to them and are focused on them in a similar way. Go ahead and tell me... what event gives boys the equivalent of the prom, where the activities are all about things he wants to do, with the boys dressing the way they want to dress, the girls dressing the way the boys want them to dress, the girls paying for it and escorting the boys, and where the boys will go hang out with their friends during the event?

If you already have a date for the prom, break up with her. If you were planning to ask a girl, especially with some elaborate production, don't!

Some of you guys think that taking a girl to the prom means she will have sex with you. If she hasn't had sex with you yet, paying her way and being her display piece for the prom almost certainly will NOT make it happen. If she really is the kind of girl who will finally have sex with you because you took her to the prom, it's probably not worth it. You're far better off going straight to one of the "after parties". But even then, you're just asking for trouble, even more so if she's underage (even if YOU are underage). 

You're better off doing something else that night, even staying home and sleeping. If you're a very bad boy, you might want to track down a neighborhood "single" mom whose daughter is off to the prom that night and it has her (the mom) feeling nostalgic and over the hill. Just be careful or you'll end up a very young father.