Don’t get me wrong: the Federalist is right to utter castigate our journalist-courtiers for going to the White House Correspondents Dinner and pretending that they’re some sort of outsider group*. But there’s this part:
Prom for nerds is a horrorshow of fixating upon a young lady whom one wishes one was taking to prom, and then never summoning the courage to ask her, because one has never actually spoken with her, ever. And those are the lucky ones: the truly unfortunate do blurt out a request, are shocked to receive an answer in the affirmative, and then endure a tortured evening of sundered togetherness. She wants to dance, he wants to talk about the X-Men: she gets her way with others, he gets his alone.
Actual nerd proms are sad and pitiable affairs, a million splinters of lonely, frustrated, and dejected young hearts who spend the best evening of their teen years screaming Kraftwerk lyrics through hot tears as they drive home, alone, tuxedos not even slightly mussed, virtue not even vaguely disturbed, consumed with loathing and regret at knowing they know not what they’ve missed.
Maybe freshman year at Hampshire will be better, they tell themselves. Maybe I’ll start an election projection website.
Senior prom for me was a very straightforward affair. I needed to go, because my parents insisted; so I reached out to the community and arrangements were made. I squired around a perfectly nice college freshman who liked to go to senior proms (free food): we made amiable small talk, I acted with perfect propriety and those of us not attending the massive after-prom party** had late-night coffee at a local pre-Starbucks coffee house and I made sure that she got home safely. No fuss, no muss, no tears. Because some of us really were marking time, and just trying to get to the Promised Land. And we knew that it was them, not us, who had the problem.
That being said: thank God for the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Moe Lane
*No, I’ve never gotten an invite. Why in God’s name would anybody think that I would get an invite? For one thing, I didn’t go to an Ivy League school.
**Bizarrely enough, that one I had an invite for: the kid throwing it was, in retrospect, actually a buddy of mine. I may have been less unpopular in high school than I thought that I was. May.
I didn’t go to senior prom – it was Friday night, and Saturday morning was the state finals of the UIL academic competitions 200 miles away, and it was no contest, really for me. Did go junior year though. And I grew up in a small enough town that basically everyone was invited to the same parties.
The good thing about going to a small school: Everybody there is some variety of friend, simply out of necessity.
I was a nerd, and I had a good time at prom because the girl I asked was also a bit of a nerd, and she had friends who were also nerds .. and girls. There was dancing, both slow and fast, and then there was an all night movie marathon.
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The appropriation of “nerd prom” by the media is obviously meant as a self-deprecation, but it’s in the form of “I’m not *really* a nerd .. “, which is typical bully behavior.
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Mew
I always thought nerd prom was San Diego Comicon.
I didn’t go to my prom: I was very much the outcast misanthrope and by Senior year, I’d swore an oath of non participation and focused on getting out.
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I can’t imagine my parents insisting I go. But it sounds like you played it smart.
I was homeschooled. Some people chose a passionate knowledge over popularity. Others devoted time to such things because they could never be “popular.” Oy, I’m getting a nerd-hipster vibe now.
We were un-cool before it was cool?
My prom date was also a College freshmen, but she was like 22 instead of 19.
And she was hot! Despite being Canadian.
Went to a Southern Baptist high school. Dancing was forbidden, so we didn’t have a prom. If we had, I likely wouldn’t have gotten a date or gone anyways.
I was invisible in high school. My hero was Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat. Skipped prom. Skipped graduation. Skipped pretty much everything. I’d have skipped High School itself if I’d had the opportunity. I did pretty much skip Chemistry. (Which, as irony would have it, was one of my college majors.)
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No regrets, except I was kind of sad that they managed to get me to some kind of Senior “awards ceremony” because the band director collared me as I was hiding. They gave me some kind of National Merit award and I swear half the administration were saying “who??” as they handed it to me.