Our boarding school didn’t have one, probably because they had only recently changed from being boys-only, and the male-to-female student ratio was still only about 4:1. Don’t know if that changed as the ratio moved closer to 50-50. (It was over half-a-century ago.)

We'd been together 2 years at that point. We are still close friends 56 years later.

Never got asked on a date, never even got asked to dance at a dance.

I should write a book…

Married after their divorce. No dancing, music, movies, friendships were hard to make but like all kids, had to be resourceful when I turned into the teens n I had to be! I’ve read a lot of your posts and yep, we made it! 🌺

dress for senior prom even though I was asked.

Rich and I are going to go.

High school, never went to a prom.

I wasn't interested in proms and all that anyway.

act like I am glad to see them.My 50th reunion was 3 years ago. I didn't go.

mother set up without asking me ,made me feel very sad.

who later on kept trying to stick his tongue in my throat. I was too grossed out to date for the next 3 years.

Too awful to recount.

I wasn't asked, but I had no particular interest in going to a school dance anyway. I was generally a poor fit for the social life at my high school.

figured that I wasn't pretty enough to be asked. Stupid of me. I did have male friends but they had younger girlfriends.

My girlfriend was a year older than me, and she went to a different high school.

So I went to hers one year, and mine the next.

Don't ask me how it happened, but I had to pay the tux rental company a pretty good amount of money (at the time), because I lost my tie and vest when I took her to her prom.

I went to very few of them. I don't know if you had Tolo at your school. Tolo is where the girl asks the guy to the dance. Due to my vast unpopularity, no one asked me to Tolo in all three years of high school.

When I was a senior, I asked a girl I had had a crush on since sophomore year to the Senior Prom. She turned me down. I later found out that she turned me down because she was hoping my younger brother, who was just a sophomore that year, would ask her. He didn't. Still, very embarrassing.

I was a hot mess in high school.

I'm not one of those toxic assholes who insists that military service "will make a man out of you". But a couple of good things resulted. I became more physically fit. And I wore my hair, by necessity, in a shorter, much more flattering style. My strikeouts with women were soon a thing of the past.

Trust me on this. Lots of people across the popularity spectrum hated high school

At the time it was the biggest disappointment in the world.

alternative was worse.

because the I had a weekend long job interview to be a summer camp counselor. I didn’t get the job.

I didn't have a girlfriend at that time but this girl from another grade school I had known since 5th grade didn't have a prom date.
Our prom & the one for her HS were on the same Saturday, so we went to both.
Went to dinner afterward with my gang.
It was a date, but not romantic. Just a couple friends taking the opportunity to go together.
I was a junior & I left after that year for college, so I wasn't around for prom as a senior.

But, if I'd have not gone, I don't think I'd have regrets.

It was very nice to have a steady boyfriend when it prom rolled around.

My best friend fixed me up with her dream boat cousin. My Mom altered my sister's old prom dress to fit me.

I was such a scared little mouse back then. I couldn't say two words without turning bright red. We were poor, and my Mom made most of my clothes. Shades of, "Carrie."

It did a lot for my ego afterwards to have even snooty cheerleaders come up and say--you were the best looking couple there. Who was that guy?

boy friends but not specifically boyfriends. Just friends.

It was in the Federal Center ballroom (now known as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center), it was really nice, had a live band. The building was originally the Kellogg Sanitarium, really fancy. Made us kids feel grown up. The other local high schools had their proms in their gyms.

Another guy friend said it sounded like fun, so he asked one if our female friends. I drove us all in the family station wagon. We had a blast. No romance. No pressure.

steady. I wish I had thought of that,

I'm a professional wallflower.

Dates.

Large, loud parties give me anxiety.

Boy, being on the spectrum sure makes things swell

Went to my girlfriend’s. She was two years younger.

High school was not fun for me.

College was way better.

I made a lot of friends there. Even though I didn’t graduate (long story) it was a good experience.

We had it at Sea World in San Diego.

not the after-prom, which I did not attend.

Sea World was closed for our event. They put on a few of the shows and we cloud walk around freely.

doing whiskey shots with the girls in the restroom. Guess I wasn’t a very good date.

Was pressured by my parents to go, and i didn't give a damn. To this day i still don't see the point in it.

was never asked, but told I would do it., We were in the same town, same grade. She was the one guys loved to date. Cheerleader, big boobs.and 3X Homecoming queen. I was told by the "in" crowd" that I was the Ugly cousin. It hurt.The funny thing was at our 50th reunion I was at told by my cousin that the committee placed her at the table still with the "in" crowd. Don't those people ever leave high school. LOL. I am glad I didn't go.After high school there was no reason to be in the "in" crown. Contrary to what my parents thought.

I have absolutely no desire to go to an all class reunion. The 'mean girls' ran the student government and are the ones who usually run the reunions. They almost got away with stealing my purse the night of the Ball & Banquet. My future hubby followed them into the ladies room taking the Vice Principal with him. They made the girls pick the contents of my purse out of the trash. Apparently they just wanted my beaded purse or to ruin my evening but they were the ones that got kicked out of the banquet.

I figure anybody from high school that I've ever wanted to stay in touch with are friends with me on Facebook - everybody else can kiss my rear!

reunion before backing out. PS. My cousin was one of those mean girls.

And the two guys I went with both turned out to be gay but they were my friends and I had a good time anyway.

I went to one with a set up boring date. And 1 other with my boyfriend who was a senior in high school while I was a freshman in college. I dressed in a sassy sexy light purple slimmery dress because he went to public school and no nuns weren’t there to disapprove! I still have a picture of myself in that dress and wow I was pretty hot as a young lass! But, my Dad wasn’t too happy about that dress though !

Dances, movies, parties, and Junior and Senior proms. She was my high school sweet heart, and I envisioned a life with her.

Didn't work out that way. She broke up with me after high school in what was still the most painful night of my life. That was 62 years ago.

Took a long time to recover. Life is, as they say, a long and winding road; my life now includes my little partner of 38 years. She knows nothing about the story I've just told; there is no reason to go back there.

journey with you true love. I had a situation very similar to yours. I never thought I could love again.or wanted to. Please give Mrs. Permanut a hug for me. Blessings to you both.

This would have been 1966. Unlike current and recent times, there was no all day primping and getting one's hair and makeup done at a salon.

My mom was a neat freak, and we spent the whole damn day cleaning the whole damn house from one end to the other because my date was going to come into the living room for maybe 5 minutes to get pictures taken. And I do mean every room in the house, all but one of which he was not going to see! I was surprised we didn't polish the silver.

We double-dated with one of my best friends & her boyfriend. Remember wrist corsages? Hers was so big it began to attract bees & she had to get rid of it!

Last edited Sun Feb 1, 2026, 12:57 AM - Edit history (1)

He and his Grandmother always made my corsages. They were beautiful.

The Tikkis

I moved to a new high school as a Junior and quickly found a girlfriend who was a year behind me. The prom was restricted to juniors and seniors so we never considered going that year. That summer she moved to a different town 60 miles away. My senior year I wanted to take her but another rule blocked it. Prom attendees had to be from our school. Didn't matter that she had been in the school system 6 years longer than me and knew more of the kids than I did. Friends tried to talk me into taking someone else but I didnt want to. We got married after college and have been married 55 years.

Couldn't afford to get dressed up. Besides which I was expelled my senior year of high school and threatened with arrest if I showed myself on school grounds.

I was able to graduate though, thanks to the intervention of the school psychologist and two very cool and understanding teachers.

But I spent most of my senior year cutting class and hanging out with runaways.

Ah, my wasted youth!

did send folks to my house.

Only on a few occasions though.

It was no great loss for me, and I think a relief for them when I said they really didn't have to bother.

I did use some of my newly won free time frequenting my public library. I had this absurd idea to read every work of poetry in its collection, alphabetically, though I skipped around a bit. I got as far as Gregory Corso--in the C's, not the G's, then skipped forward to Allen Ginsberg, after which I gave up out of my inherent laziness. Had fun though. Plus one of the librarians would lay out cookies for me when she saw me coming--I looked like a wastrel, mondo undernourished--as long as I sat and ate them in front of her, and then wiped my hands before heading into the stacks.

Also read most if not all the collection on popular music, also fun.

Sorry if this is too much information. I had what people might call "a difficult adolescence"--but then, that's true for most of us, isn't it?

Best wishes.

Tiny private school class if 16, 9-12th grades all went. I got set up w a friend of a classmate thank you Liz.

Prom drama as it was held in the gym.

Never asked. But travelled to another city where a guy I had a crush on was performing in his college’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. Would not have traded that for date to a prom no matter who may have wanted me to be his date.

I wasn't into sports, clubs, or other activities. I preferred to remain home after school. I wasn't antisocial but I just didn't care t be around people very much. Back then, I viewed most people as being phonies and proms were their attempt to act lie an adult. Looking back, I don't regret not going to prom. I don't think I missed anything.

Quitting high school at sixteen for college was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. I'm not sure I would have survived any more high school. A few kids in our high school didn't. Prom wasn't even on my radar.

Curiously I was allowed to attend a graduation even though I hadn't satisfied all the requirements to graduate, mostly because my grandmother had cancer and wanted to see at least one of her grandchildren graduate. The school administration may have signed off on that because I was already enrolled in college. It felt very odd graduating ahead of my own classmates.

I got a lot of pressure from some adults to finish high school, mostly people who thought it would be essential to my social development or something. I had no social development then, I was weird autistic spectrum kid and would remain weird for a few more years.

I sometimes have dreams that some powerful authority is forcing me to complete high school and they are not listening to arguments that I'm a college graduate who has taught high school himself, so I guess the experience was somewhat traumatic for me. They've usually got me sitting in some pre-algebra class for juniors and seniors in spite of the fact I took algebra in the eighth grade.

would not allow me to do so. I had skipped a grade in elementary school, My senior year was filled with classes I myself was interested in.

So I was pretty busy …. Had to grow up fast!

When my sister went to hers a couple of years later, she assured me that I didn't miss much. LOL

One of the sweetest things my husband ever said to me was, when I told him nobody asked me to prom, "I would have asked you."

Rented a limo and after prom went into Manhattan to a comedy club and then to the beach to watch the sunrise and then went out for breakfast

I cut a deal to graduate early on certain conditions, so I went to the 1973 prom with a blind date the school secretary set up for me (the secretary had just graduated the previous year and was a friend of mine), and then to the 1974 prom with a pal of mine, so I could hang out with my former classmates. Also because I loved dancing.

1973's date was with a girl named Miriam who had been engaged to be married, then her fiance broke it off like two weeks before the prom. You can imagine she was pretty depressed. I think her going to the prom with somebody was her assertion to her friends (and herself) that she wasn't going to let the jilting get her down. Seemed pretty valiant to me, and I was perfectly willing to help. She was about five-foot nothing, and at the end of the prom stood up on her tippy-toes and gave me the sweetest little lip-brushing kiss in (presumably) gratitude. Pretty sure she was crying at the time.

1974's date was a girl named Suzie I volunteered with at the crisis hot line. She was a couple years younger. Not a romantic relationship, just a couple of friends with similar interests outside of school.

Alas, any attempts I made in high school at romantic relationships foundered almost immediately. I was too weird for most people.

-- Mal

It wasn't my kind of thing.

Had tickets. A date with a cheerleader. Reservations at the best restaurant. A corsage on order. A rented tux. And my dad was going to let me use his precious Alfa Romeo Spyder! Then I got the measles, at 17! Lost a lot of weight. Nearly died. My mom swore I had been vaccinated, but me and 2 younger sibs got sick. She erred. I nearly died. And missed my big date.

I did, however, attend a couple formal balls. Getting ready took more time and energy than the actual events!