My Painful Experiences of a High School Dance

張貼日期：Nov 17, 2013 4:41:36 AM

Eric Li

Asking my crush to the formal dance in high school might have been the most terrifying and worst experiences with a female in my life. It was during the first semester of my junior year of high school. The school I was in had a formal dance every Christmas, usually hosted by a five-star hotel. I remember during the first month of my junior year, I had a huge crush on one of my classmates. To protect her identity, we will call her Steph. During that time, I had a really good friend named Winston (a false name too) who had been my classmate since the eighth grade I could never have imagined how my life with these two individuals would change so dramatically because of the events leading up to and during that formal event.

One of the things about entering high school that I was most excited about was finally being able to ask a girl to dances as an official date.There are two reasons why this was significant. First of all, middle school dances in my school did not allow dates. As a result, all those dances just ended up being the awkward type where guys stood on one end of the dance floor and girls stood on the other side of the dance floor and every time a guy wished to dance with a girl, he must make the humiliating walk across the empty dance floor in front of his classmates. The second reason was that Asian parents are extremely strict. “No dating till you’re 30!” as my mom kept telling me. So for sure, there was no dating in middle school.

High school finally came and I realized what a difficult task it was to ask a girl to a formal dance. In fact, my first two formal dance experiences were not ideal. I was too much of a wimp to ask girls to dance beforehand, thus I ended up going to these events with no dates. However, I did find some comfort in the fact that I still managed to ask singled-out ladies during the dance and succeeded. But to me, this feeling just wasn’t the same. Going to the event with a date and asking someone to dance with you during the event is very different.

It was my junior year in high school when I had a crush on Steph since the beginning of that school year. I really didn’t know if she had any idea that I was obsessed over her. If she knew, she did a really good job hiding it because we would hang out very often during class and during lunch. I knew in my mind that Steph was going to be my official date to the Christmas dance. I recall writing up a script and purchasing flowers on Thursday two weeks before the event in the anticipation of asking her to be my date on Friday. I strategically picked Friday because that way, I would give her the weekends to think about my request if necessary. I knew for a fact that asking Steph would not be an easy task. My previous experiences had taught me that I was shy and never had the courage to ask a girl to dances. This task was made ten times worse because Steph was my crush at the time. However, I knew I had gone too far to back out because I had already spent money on the flowers. Friday came and I had the first period with her. With the scripts virtually imprinted in my brains and the flowers choking in my backpack, I decided to make my move. “Ummm, Steph?Ummm…I was wondering, if you want to have lunch out on the fields today?” I was way too nervous and could not even begin my first word on my script. However, she did agree to have lunch with me on the fields that day. “This is probably better for me,” I told myself after seeing the number of students in the compacted classroom “the fields will be less densely packed by students; maybe it will be a better place to ask her.” Then lunch came, “Hey, Steph? I ummm….” I still couldn’t get myself to ask her out. “What a loser!” I told myself, “You had the greatest opportunity in the world and you blew it! Well, you have the last period with her; it’s your last chance!” The last period came and I was so nervous that even the teacher thought I acted strange. Don’t judge! I was still watching cartoons like the Yu-Gi-Oh. How did one expect me to be mature enough and courageously ask a girl out? After school, I finally managed to find her at the lockers and popped the question. It was probably my biggest fail when asking a girl out. I completely forgot my script as I just plainly asked if she wanted to go to the dance with me. “Eh, I don’t think I’m going.” She said, “Dressing up and spending hours to prepare for the event seems too tedious.” Of course, I tried to act like I was fine with her decision but inside, I was completely crushed. I dejectedly went home that day. Upon opening my backpack, I found the flowers I had bought the day before, all crumbled up and torn into pieces.

The news of rejection was too overwhelming for me and I sought comfort upon my friends that night. One of those friends was Winston and he was also really close with Steph. After telling him my situation, he comforted me with words like, “There are plenty of other girls you can ask and Steph probably rejected you not because she doesn’t want to go with you; it’s probably because she simply doesn’t want to go.” That night, he claimed to talk to Steph to figure out the reason of rejection. He came back with the same news Steph had told me hours before. She simply had no interest in going to an event that would take her hours to prepare.

The Christmas formal dance finally arrived and even though I had been rejected by the girl of my dreams two weeks prior to this event, I was determined to enjoy the night ahead. Unlike the previous formal dances, however, I managed to ask out one of my female friends named Emily as my official date. Emily and I had a really great time that night, I guess. I bought her the tickets, went to a romantic dinner and even bought her a corsage. After a few hours of dating, we finally went to the hotel where the Christmas dance took place and who did I see? I saw Steph! No, not just Steph, but she was with Winston! That’s right; Steph went to the dance with Winston! Apparently the day Steph rejected me was also the day Winston took advantage and asked her out and surprisingly, she quickly accepted. What made me angrier was the fact that a few of my friends knew and did not tell me because they were afraid it would deal a killing blow to my ego. Nonetheless, I was devastated that night. After the dance, Winston came up to me and said, “What are you going to do about it? Don’t feel so bad bro, at least you came with a date as well.” Ironically, I controlled my emotions and decided not to make a fool out of myself by stirring up a fight. Even though the night started off on a positive note, it quickly turned eerie. I was truly embarrassed that day.

Of course, my relationship between Steph and Winston turned sour after the Christmas dance. I cut off all communications with Winston and tried my best to avoid Steph that entire year. As for Steph and Winston, they dated for a few months and decided that it wasn’t working and split. Both of them eventually tried to get in contact with me to apologize, but for me the damage done was irreparable. On a side note, Emily and I became very close after the dance party and we almost dated. However, she was a senior at that time and before we officially dated, she went to the US for college.