A Tale of Two Proms: Part I

I’ve said before that you shouldn’t take a date to a dance if you haven’t been hanging out with them for at least three months. Hopefully, by now, you’ve realized that I suck at taking my own advice.

  

Which is why, mere months after the Rogerio Debacle, I found myself with another date whom I barely knew for another dance—but not just any dance. No, this was the dance to end all dances, where high school dreams are made or broken—this was the PROM.  

His name was Blaine, and he a friend of my friend Jennie from back in Owasso. I met him when I was crashing Jen’s confirmation class one weekend (I have no idea why; confirmation classes aren’t exactly known for being particularly entertaining). I liked his smile and we exchanged shy glances throughout the class.

Naturally, Jennie and my other friend, Aubrey, wanted to set us up. As girls tend to do though,they went from zero to sixty in 2.4 seconds and decided not only should they set us up, but that I should ask him to prom.

Sidebar: Despite what you see in the movies, prom is kind of an awkward experience unless you’re going with a significant other. Bringing someone in who is unfamiliar with you and the group dynamics? Recipe for disaster.

Against my better judgment, I allowed them to negotiate a hang-out between the two of us. We had a game night at Aub’s house, and after a few rounds of Trivial Pursuit, I got cold feet and wanted to back out. But your friends aren’t your friends unless they meddle in your love life, so the girls took it upon themselves to ask Blaine for me.

Yes. We were back in middle school. I’m surprised that the actual asking was verbal and not brokered through a “Want to go to Prom with E? Check yes or no” note.

I had a prom date. Now, I just needed to accumulate the other trappings of the evening: I borrowed a slinky black dress from my sister, broke out a pair of old heels from the back of my closet and bought a pair of $4.99 earrings from Claire’s. I did my own hair, which involved some sort of random twisting and a few azaleas from my front yard. I have to say, for being thrown together at the last minute, I looked quite pretty.

Blaine met me at Jennie’s house in Owasso. He brought me a carnation corsage, which should have been my first clue as to how the evening would go.

Sidebar: Yes, it is completely shallow, but there is honestly no flower I hate more than the carnation.

After taking way too many pictures at Woodward Park, we were finally off to the dance.

I think the theme was “Fire and Ice” that year, which apparently translated to floating tea lights in rose bowls with a few ice cubes tossed in and little more. Anyway, the food was predictably crappy, though the DJ was pretty good, but what I could not get over was my date’s inability to keep a conversation going.

Me: So, Blaine, do you have any brothers or sisters?

Him: Yeah.

Silence.

Me: Okay, uh, what are their names?

Him: Blake and Will.

Silence.

Me: Soooo, what do you like to do for fun?

Him: I play soccer.

Me (rambling to fill the dead air): That’s cool. I never learned to play as a kid, but I wish I did. I don’t really understand all of the rules.

Silence.

That’s pretty much how the whole dinner portion of the evening went: me desperately trying to pull something out of the guy and him responding in monosyllables. I can understand shyness, but this was slightly ridiculous. It’s not like he didn’t know anybody—Aubrey had brought his friend as a date, and he had known the girls for years. Needless to say, I was not enthralled, and wasn’t really interested in getting down to Lil’ Jon with him.

After the dance was over, we went bowling in our dresses and rented shoes. I avoided Blaine and flirted with his friend and managed to play a decent game. From there, we were going back to Jen’s to camp out in her backyard—we had a tent and were going to roast marshmallows and tell scary stories (and later, burn things…there was a breach between the Tent People and the Fire Civilization. What can I say, my friends are loons.). However, Aubrey and Jennie hadn’t given up yet and so pulled some strings and moved some people when we were loading up the cars so that Blaine and I ended up in his car alone.

Where we spent the twenty minute ride in, you guessed it, near-complete silence.

I won’t bore you with the events of the rest of the night (which, incidentally were a lot of fun, Blaine’s reticence aside), but I later found out that Blaine thought, overall, the evening went pretty well.

I’d hate to see what he would deem a bad date.