FRISCO, TEXAS — Prom season is here, and Centennial High School’s halls are full of posters, flyers, and you guessed it, promposals. The five-minute blocks formed in the halls stopping me from making it to pre-calculus on time aren’t the only unpleasant thing about them.
Promposals, a grand gesture often involving painted signs, flowers, and other assorted gifts are almost a status symbol around the halls. They scream importance and popularity. While from the outside looking in, this may seem like a dream, there’s an unsettling reality to promposals many overlook.
For one, most promposals are surprises, and that comes with being put on the spot. An anxious person’s worst nightmare, to be surrounded by people, facing a big sign with recording phones in your face. And, if the people recording are friends of the person promposing, there’s the pressure of acceptance, to avoid a mob of disappointed faces coming your way.
Promposals are also arguably incredibly shallow. Someone standing before you, flowers, a sign, and a box of Crumbl cookies in hand with dozens of people recording doesn’t seem personal at all. It seems like it was done for the attention that came with it. And like my last point, this grand display seems like a good way to get enough peers watching to pressure you into saying yes.
They are also expensive: flowers, cookies, sign supplies, teddy bears, and all the unnecessary parts of a promposal rack up quite a bill. Why not save this money to get your date a beautiful bouquet of flowers, or a corsage they could dry and keep for years to come? Promposals are simply not worth the money, for the five minutes of fame you get afterwards. Pats on the back are free, you don’t need to spend $50-$100 on flowers and teddy bears to get some, guys.
They also create this vain expectation. Just this week, I have watched multiple girls on the verge of breakdowns over the fact their boyfriend hasn’t promposed. Key word being “boyfriend”; you are already dating this man, everyone knows you’re dating, and that you’re going to prom together, this is not a pregnancy announcement, it’s senior prom.
If you really want to ask or be asked to prom, and are dating that person, a simple date and a question works just fine. It is your relationship, not mine, you don’t need to display it for me, because frankly, most people don’t care who you’re going to prom with. They assume it’s your boyfriend, and so do I.
Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to. Prom is about having a good time and living your last school dance to the fullest, and big posters with cheesy puns you stole off Pinterest don’t matter as much as you think. However, if you choose to prompose, more power to you, see you at prom, without the sign please.