Prom.
Spring is the time. With the appearance of April and May, kids all across the country will be going to Prom soon. Maybe.
I’m not quite sure how it works these days, but back when I was in high school, it was a huge source of tension for most of the student population. The only ones who didn’t sweat it were the “steady” couples. You know the twos. The football player and the cheerleader who’d been dating all four years of high school. Or the two band members who seemed practically married.
There were many of those couples when I went to school. Going to prom for them was a given. But then there were the “single” kids. The ones who weren’t really dating anyone at all. For them, it was a white-knuckle experience. Hoping, beyond hope, that someone “cool” would ask them to Prom, or to any of the dances, for that matter. Two left feet or not.
I dated the same guy for three of my four years in high school, off and on. For a girl who knew she was gay, I guess it was pretty dishonest on my part. He was a totally nice guy. Funny. A good athlete. Cute. But I had zero interest in him. Zip. We went on our dates, and we’d go to the dances. All the while I was holding him off. I dated him because I simply didn’t want anyone to know I was gay. I backed into the long, dark, shadows of that whole scheme, out of necessity.
But, I won’t go down that weary road right now.
My first experience with the “dance” trauma happened during my freshman year. Of course, during that first year of high school, we only want to fit in. And then it happened. The dreaded Homecoming dance came around, accompanied by all that stress and anxiety. Oh, the joys of youth.
I completely wanted to be one of the cool kids. So, I was hoping beyond hope to get asked. And it happened. A boy named Dwayne popped the question. I accepted. Dwayne the bathtub, I’m dwowning.
My mom, who was handy at sewing, got an old prom dress from one of the neighbor girls up the street, and converted it to a shortened version, taking it in to fit me. On the night of the big date, Dwayne showed up in brown polyester pants with a wide belt, a shirt with those western studs on them, and a goofy-looking bolo. He didn’t dress like this during school, as we had a dress code uniform. How could I have known?
He picked me up with his Mom and Dad driving their paneled station wagon, and the four of us ate at Ponderosa, sitting at those big long tables where everyone sat together. I was a little mortified and a bit overdressed. One of the cooks at Ponderosa was dating my older sister, and I never heard the end of Dwayne the Homecoming Date.
Once we were at the dance, I bided my time. He was only allowed to stay one hour and I don’t remember saying much at all to Dwayne. It all seemed horribly awkward. I’m pretty sure his parents were just outside with the engine running.
I’m sure most of you had magical proms and dances and dates, as so many heterosexual kids do.
In recent years, it seems like things were starting to shift for gay kids, but now we are sliding back into the past, where states are trying to ban kids from even saying the word gay. Like in Florida, and here in Ohio.
But. For girls who like boys, and boys who like girls, they can go, hand in hand and live happily ever.
As for the rest of the kids?
There is no hand in hand, on the edge of the sand. No light by the silvery moon.
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“Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic
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“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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“And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.”
― Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussycat
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