The High School Years: Part 4 - Prom

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

As March turned into April, a little thought popped into my head. Prom was coming up in May! Now the question came, should I ask out Alura? After all, with all of the planning and shopping that comes from a prom date, you need to ask these things well ahead of time.

There really are multiple schools of thought here, even though she explicitly said that she wanted to be friends. People go to the prom as “just friends” all the time and nothing ever comes with it. Even though she was just a freshman and prom is for juniors and seniors, freshmen are allowed to go to prom if they are with someone who is a junior or senior at Windy Hill High School. Lucky for me, I was a junior.

At the same time, we were just friends and maybe she would interpret an invitation to the prom as something a little more, especially after I had already poured my heart out to her a few weeks ago.

After much back and forth between myself and myself about it, I decided to pull the trigger. I was going to ask Alura to the prom and hope for the best. Was I prepared for a possible rejection? Not really, my head was still in the clouds at this point. Remember, she did not hate me and she thought my liking her was “totally sweet”. Maybe I really was onto something with this whole prom thing.

What I really wanted to do was ask her out in person, figuring it would be much more personable and maybe she would say yes. But seeing as mock trials were over, we did not have the same lunch that year, and we did not have any class together, I was not able to get 3 minutes alone with her. Therefore, I had no other choice but to resort to the old email again.

“Alura, you will not hurt my feelings if you say no”, I started, “but I was wondering, since I rarely ever see you in person anymore, if you were willing to accompany me to the prom on May 18. I would be honored if you would come with me. And if you do say no, I will still be friends with you”

Then I played the waiting game. And with butterflies in my stomach I was impatient as any normal person would be having just asked someone they liked out and were waiting for an answer. Only for most normal people it lasts for a few seconds. For me, the wait was hours.

I told Anna that I had asked her out to prom, even after I told her previously that I had chickened out. What? Did you think I was lying when I said that I was going back and forth and back and forth about it?

“Good job”, was Anna’s reply, “I have no idea what she will say, I forgot to ask her. Might say yes….”

Well that certainly had me giddy! She concluded the email by saying how she feels quite free that she does not like Mark anymore. Good for her, only now, I could not concentrate on her moment of triumph.

“Why is she forcing me to wait so long? When will you see/talk to her again? I need to know. If you only knew how I was feeling right now. I can’t concentrate on my homework, I just keep thinking about her. Why is she forcing me to wait?” was my reply to Anna.

And yes, I realized these were email conversations and that I was dealing with people who had normal lives that did not include spending every waking moment in front of a computer, but really, the hours were torturous.

A new email! Was this the one?

No. It was Anna again.

“Okay….I haven’t talked to her at all today so far. I could call her if you’d like….”

Well, as much as I was dumping things on Anna and as much as I was involving her in the mix, I did not want her to ask her to prom for me. I would wait my time. I was just impatient.

“So much false hope…..So many emails…..none from Alura (yet)…..When will I know?...”

The wait continued.

Another new email! Who is it from?....Damn. It’s Anna again.

“Just be patient”, she stated, “She got online a couple minutes ago, she sent me and our other friends a couple emails.”

Finally! She’s going to come on any minute now and let me know, right?

Sure enough, not even 1 minute later, Alura responded to my prom invitation.

“My parents have told me that they don’t want me going to an event with all upperclassmen. Also, I don’t really know anyone else who would be going and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. So I really can’t. Sorry.”

Rejected!

I know I said that I wouldn’t be depressed, but the more I thought about it, the more it did sort of depress me. Rejection is never a good thing if you’re someone like me and you struggle with things like this.

Looking back, I can see that the parents and the lack of socialization was just a cop out on her part for not wanting to be with me and I understand that. As someone who has lied a few times in his life, I can attest to the fact that when we don’t want to do something, we pile on as many bogus excuses as we possibly can to make it seem like we really can’t go when in reality we just don’t want to go. That was absolutely the predicament that she was in and I should have seen something like that coming a mile away. After all, she is too sweet to deliberately hurt my feelings.