I can't explain my recent fascination with school dances.
In the last week, I've written twice about them. Once based on my real life experience at St. Thomas school as a sixth grader. The second time, an entirely fictional account of a date to the prom, with my silver anniversary watch in my pocket. Which is weird, because I didn't get that watch until I'd been married for years. And from my wife.
My kids are starting to go to their own dances now. Tentatively at first.
The first big dance for them as Sixth graders, was the Halloween dance. My daughter was all fired up to go, my son wasn't so sure of himself. We dropped both of them off, and had to go back about a half an hour later to pick up my son. He said it was too loud. At least he tried it out.
My own first dance recollections are fairly hazy. Filled with white pants, Izod sweaters, and penny loafers that put huge blisters on my feet. And I could never get pennies into mine! Which was super frustrating. I suspect that everyone else conned their dad into getting it in there for them. But I could be wrong.
Those early dances were filled with lots of standing around, in same sex groups. Only after a little while did any large number of people start dancing. I was always terrible at it too. They actually taught us the "box step waltz" in gym class. I learned that this was special just to get us ready for the dances. No body contact was permitted. By which I mean the boy and the girl held each other at arms length. Forget the six inch rule, or a hands-breadth, we're talking at least a foot here.
I always disliked anything other than slow dancing. It just felt like a maniacal workout to me. But then, while I did have good rhythm ( I was in band dammit!!), I definitely had no moves. Didn't want any either. See the reference to working out, above.
I think I went to most of the dances at St. Thomas, I only lived a block away from school, and my parents strongly encouraged it. I might have gotten out of a few of them, I don't remember.
I didn't go to any dances in High School. I didn't date either. I just didn't want to put forth the effort I guess. Anything that put a cramp in my preferred activities, of reading, sleeping, eating, playing video games, watching television, and movies; I didn't much want to do them. I wasn't that awesome in High School.
I wish I had done more though. I'll tell all my kids that too, if it can make any difference.
I regret not dating anyone. I regret not going to any dances (Prom!). I should have taken a more diverse group of classes.
I mean, I finally shucked off Band class for Senior year, as i was done with my fine arts graduation requirement, and I threw a hissy fit. I wanted a study hall period. Basically so I could fuck off. But my folks would have none of that. So just like with bad haircuts, sweaters, and birth control glasses, they got their way. I took "college study skills" just to shut them up.
The class was a joke. My desk mate and I, were totally disruptive. We both got kicked out of class several times. We'd take turns throwing things at the blackboard when the teacher's back was turned. Then have fun pretending we were just as baffled as anyone else.
One time, I got sent to the principal's office for screwing around. So I went down to the office, and sat in reception until the end of class. I even saw the principal several times while I was sitting there. I said hello to him, and we shot the shit for a minute, then he left. Hey, nobody told me I had to tell the office why I was there, amirite?
The tomfoolery kind of climaxed with my desk-mate showing up for class drunk as a skink one day. We both kind of blew off that class after that.
I didn't get accepted to Michigan State University that summer. I guess I showed them!
When you apply to colleges, they kind of remove your grades for gym class, and Band. And my resulting 1.8 GPA, just didn't impress them enough. Who knew??!!
Oh yeah, school dances. I should have gone. I wasn't into being very social though, as I might have mentioned. And when I did do stuff socially, I tended to overcompensate for my antisocialness, by showing zero social skills in some way. Mostly by being an over the top "look at me" mother fucker. I'm sure people could attest to that, if they gave a damn to do so.
I've lost interest in this topic. Next!
Cheers
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