Prom Asks, Prom Angst

Picture this: You are taking a quiz and at the bottom of the quiz – the last question – is “Will you go to prom with me?” You look up and a boy is standing there with flowers, a boy who’s not even in the class.

Or this: Someone puts posters up around the school asking you to go to prom, but you’re not sure who it is until, again, during class, he comes in accompanied by his entire health class. They are carrying letters that spell out your name and the invitation to prom. He presents you with flowers.

Or this: You leave school and find your car covered with post-it notes asking if you’ll go to prom. There’s even an easel set up on your car asking the same question, and The Rock's asking it too. Suddenly your prom date wannabe shows up with, you guessed it, flowers.

The prom "ask" was never easy. These days, however, it’s over the top.

In East Greenwich, the trend started about four years ago (EG Patch wrote about it last year). Now, boys are racking their brains to come up with a show-stopping (heart-stopping?) ask. And girls, well, they just have to wait. Because the fact is, for a large segment of the EG high school population, the boys do the asking.

EG Patch went undercover to find two seniors to talk about prom – ok, not undercover. Just had to hang out at Felicia’s for a while. We got an earful. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call our students Girl Senior and Boy Senior.

Boy Senior: “What guys have to worry about that girls do not … first, you have to figure out what girl you’re going to ask. You have to figure out if she’s going to say yes. You have to figure out if other guys are going for her because if other guys are going for her then that’s bro-code that you CANNOT ask her. [What’s bro-code? Click here … if you’re sure you want to know.]

“Once you figure out who you’re going to ask, you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to ask her and how other people are going to react to that.

“Then, once she says yes, you have to figure out whether you’re doing pictures with her friends or with your friends. Some of the time it happens to be the same, some of the time it doesn’t. You have to figure out how you’re going to get to pictures, then you have to figure out how you’re going to get to prom. Transportation is usually a limo or a party bus or something.

“You have to figure out what you’re doing after prom, how you’re going to get there, and if you’re going to sleep over. You have to figure out how much money the prom is and the bus is and you have to clear all that with your parents.”

Girl Senior: “Girls have to deal with the wait. There are so many girls at the high school – why would they choose me? [For the record, this is coming from a beautiful girl.]

“Is somebody going to tell me beforehand? What if somebody asks me that I don’t want to go with? Am I going to have to say no? Or is the guy I want to go with going to ask me? It’s so stressful for a girl because you’re just waiting and waiting.”

They both said once the asking begins, it's like a runaway train, with everyone either racing to ask, or waiting to be asked. 

Like so much of high school life these days, there's usually several people involved. 

Take Brandon Eckles's asking of Carolyn Corrigan on Thursday at Felicia's. Brandon had arranged to have a friend bring her to the popular coffee shop but he got there first and wrote his invitation one of the chalkboards used to write down the specials, as pre-arranged with owner Felicia Revens. 

Brandon recounted the story from there: "My friend Ben Chester brought her there and he said, 'I've never had a Felicia's coffee before. Is that one a good flavor?' And she looked up at it and gasped. I was crouched behind the refrigerators and I popped up with a bouquet of flowers and said, "So what's your answer?" She obviously said Yes!!"

And Ben Chester? He got his teacher to include a prom invitation on a PowerPoint presentation. (Check out the video attached here to see it.)

Just in case you were wondering, the EGHS 2013 Prom will be held at the Crowne Plaza in May. All this editor (who never attended her prom!) can say is, Good luck everyone!