With winter break ending and finals week coming for our GPAs, the mood around campus might have flatlined. Fortunately, Winter Formal is right on the horizon, accompanied by a surplus of creative, elaborate, sometimes hilariously ridiculous asks.
What used to only apply to the ‘prom-posal’ has unfortunately come to affect every dance the school has to offer.
The most common dance proposal goes a little something like this: the asker approaches the askee, holding a giant poster with some sort of pun off the askee’s name written on it in ASB font. The asker presents the askee with the poster and various other extravagant items at (insert any extremely public setting). Everyone around them “awwws” and the askee says “yes.” They hug. Wasn’t that a cute moment? Perhaps, but there are a few things about the situation that people usually don’t stop to consider.
The person being asked doesn’t always want to be the center of attention. They could be the type of person who turns beet red and hates it when waiters sing them happy birthday in a restaurant. The stress of being asked in front of their friends, the asker’s friends and sometimes even teachers could lead them to say yes when they would never do so otherwise.
Although these gestures may seem nice on camera, they put a lot of pressure on the person being asked. So much emphasis and focus has been put on the simple act of asking someone to a dance, that it is no longer about the romantic gestures. Instead it’s all about the show.
The point of a school dance should not be how someone gets asked out. instead I would encourage people to just go, have fun and enjoy their night. By God, you’ve already shelled out a wad of cash for tickets and an outfit, so don’t feel like you have to spend even more on the simple act of asking your date out.
TCHS School Newspaper