Flashback Friday ~ The Prom
Mocha With Linda has started her very own meme. This is how she describes it:
This new meme’s purpose is to have us take a look back and share about a specific time or event in our lives. It will be fun to see how similar – or different – our experiences have been!.
I am enjoying this meme a lot. Grab the button and the link and come play along. Linda’s theme this week is:
Share your prom memories. Did your school have a junior prom or just a senior prom? What did you wear? Was there a party after the prom? Did you go with a date or with friends, and if it was a date, was it a one-time date or a boyfriend/girlfriend scenario? Did you go to more than one prom (like, being someone’s date at another school or year.) Where was your senior prom held? Any particular songs come to mind when you think of prom? As always, pictures are great!
I had no interest in attending my proms. They would have been occasions for my step-mom to dress me funny and send me out in public to be ridiculed. The only decent clothes I had as a teen, I purchased myself. My SM bought me men’s clothes from Salvation Army.
She said I was fat (size 12) and since I wouldn’t look good in anything anyway, there was no point in spending good money on my clothing. I don’t even want to know what she would have put me in for the prom. It didn’t matter though. Since I dressed so oddly I didn’t get asked out often. That, in turn, kept me from having to turn anyone down.
For my Senior Prom I no longer lived with my step-mother and could have had a gorgeous dress and pretty much all the trappings, but I was dating a guy two years out of high school (grandmother approved, we knew his whole family) and he really wasn’t up for attending my prom, although he did encourage me to go. I just chose not to.
Not going to my proms isn’t something I regret. There are too many bad memories for me associated with high school snobbery. And, before anybody decides to feel sorry for me, the things I went through as a kid helped make me who I am today, and I kind of like me.
I do have some wonderful high school memories and I had some great high school friends — a couple I just visited last week when I was home.  It just seems that Linda keeps picking the wrong Flashbacks to highlight my joys.
26 Comments
Gee, just the knack I wanted to have! LOL I’ll try to do better with the flashbacks!
Linda — I knew you’d appreciate taking the blame! LOL!
I was asked out to prom the same day I got accepted to college. Guess which one my mom was more excited about?
SN — my parents were always so overjoyed with my dates I wondered iof they thought I was so ugly and disgusting they’d be stuck with me forever.
I went to mine last minute (posted about it on my blog), but I don’t think I would have regretted it if I didn’t either. I didn’t really attend any of the other dances at school, they just weren’t my thing. When I was in middle school (gr 8 and 9) the local high school hosted a weekly dance club type event for us middle school students which I attended a couple times. Once I attended it to watch a friend perform a dance routine (as often they showcased dancers before the actual “dance” started) and then we stuck around and the other time was when I was in high school and our dance class (which I took in grade 11 and 12 instead of PE) performed for the middle schoolers who came to the event.
Teresa — I read your post. I think your Dry Grad party sounded like fun. I might have wanted to go to something like that.
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This was good, Quillly. Good in that you told it just right. I’m wondering if you had as much trouble with your SM as Cinderella had with hers. For sure you identified with her if that wasn’t a banned book in your house. My kids, four of them, had a SD. I felt sorry for them but would spend as much time as I could with them. My visits were to be proper and reasonable. I went to more of their ball games than any other relative.
I went to Senior prom only. I had Dad’s car and went with a bunch of guys, stag. I also had my first taste of whiskey that night. Oh yes, and unhooked a car speedometer for the first time. See why I’m not doing a ‘Flashback Friday’ this week. I would have to tell lies and make it lily white for my relatives to read. 🙂
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Jim — I really didn’t see myself as Cinderella until after I was grown. And my SM did have a couple of good points before she got ill and evil.
I didn’t attend any proms either. I was too cool to go to a prom. *sigh* … fortunately I’ve changed a LOT since then! 🙂
Melli — how ironic. You were too cool to go to your proms and I was too uncool to feel brave enough to attend mine.
People are so immature back in high school that it’s the “in” thing that time to be a snob, especially if they belong to the popular kids. Haha but that faded away when everyone went to College. In College, you have to learn to mix up with people.
I don’t like it whenever the old folks dress the kids funny or the way they want it. Of course their taste is different compared to the tastes of today.
I only attended one prom. I wasn’t really interested in talking to guys back then, hanging out with my friends was more of my thing.
This seems like a fun meme, maybe I’ll try to join in some time. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
HC — please join the meme. I am sure Linda would be pleased to have you.
Size 12 fat? Ridiculous! I was at my skinniest at a size 12 — I would love to see it again some day. I’d settle for a 14 even.
One has to wonder what was going through your step-mother’s head.
I’m glad you can recognize that what people meant harmfully, God can turn around and use for good. I’ve had situations like that as well that I would not have chosen, but my character wouldn’t be the same without.
My Christian high school had spring banquets instead of proms, which I liked much better.
Barbara — I actually felt my best and was my most athletic at size 14. I’d go back to it in a heartbeat. You know what strikes me now that never occurred to me as a child? My SM wasn’t trim!
I also did not go to the prom.
Betty — I think more don’t go than do!
I didn’t go to the prom but I did go to a 10-year class reunion. It was terrible. I had forgotten how much I didn’t have in common with my graduating class.
Karen — I have never gone to any or my class reunions. I am still close to the classmates that were my friends. I see them whenever I can and don’t need a big fancy reunion party with all those other folk getting in the way.
I didn’t do a prom either.
My story isn’t as interesting though, small private school, no prom to go to.
I hope you feel free to buy yourself a lovely dress anytime you want.
You deserve it.
Logo — I am not so much into dresses anymore, but I have a HUGE closet full of clothes (most of which I don’t wear).
Sad to read you did not get along with your SM, every child’s nightmare. Since I had a boyfriend in my senior year, I went to the prom. It was fun and I had a good time.
Gigi — I had a boy friend in my senior year, but he was two years out of school already and didn’t like it well enough when he attended to go back for my prom. That was really all right with me. None of my friends went. We had a big party at my grandmother’s house instead.
Size 12 was my skinny teenager size. I don’t even want to look like that again!
I, too, dated a boy 2 years older during my senior year. We went to my prom, but it wasn’t a lot of fun. That sort of dressing up and socializing has never been “my thing.” Apparently it isn’t my oldest son’s “thing” either, since he has made no plans to attend. I suggested that if he decides to go, he has a nice group of friends to hang out with at the Prom.
Karen — none of my friends went to the prom, either. It isn’t something I’ve ever regretted missing.
although our school system was different and we didn’t have proms in the sense you had, i share your opinion about these social gatherings. i never fitted in.
I agree that the pain we experience in our young years does prepare us for our adult life and strengthen us. It certainly did me, too. I remember going to the prom but it wasn’t necessarily a great experience to remember at all.
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