That time Izzy went to her senior prom

Once upon a time I was an awkward nerdy boy, not cool in anyway and definitely not taking care of my body. I blundered through high school, a complete romantic failure; an incel in the modern parlance. Spring of my senior year came, and that meant prom season, this was it, my last pretense to ask a girl on a date. Sure I was a nerd and uncool, but there were girls that were uncool too, right?

Mock trial season was wrapping up, and there were a few girls on the team, they had seemed to put up with me well enough for the last few months. No’s across the board, always with a reasonable reason, I didn’t understand that at the time, sorry ladies, I understand now. Ok, there were a few girls that did speech but not mock trial, nope again. Oh, there was a girl on the quiz bowl team, we go to church together too, no again. Oh! my friend K- and I have known each other since we were infants, oh nope she just started dating a guy (they’re married now, we’re still good friends, so that worked out for everybody). Oh my godmother has a daughter about my age, yeah the desperation is setting in dear reader, no again.

Having exhausted the list of girls I’d talked to at any point in the last year or so, I skulked back to my D&D group to lament my fate. One of the guys in the group pointed out he had just broken up with his girlfriend, maybe I could ask her. Yes dear reader I now realize this is a terrible idea. But at the time, I was young, desperate, and dumb. Another no, shocking, but this rejection had more depth than most, she had the courtesy to tell me I was an idiot, but she did have another friend that was looking for a date. She said her friend probably wasn’t my type, I was churchy and meek, her friend N- was loud, confident, and wore her sexuality on her sleeve. It was an obvious trap and I walked right into.

I had met N- a few times in passing over the last few years, we could pick each other out in a room if pressed, but had said maybe a total of 10 words in 4 years. I called her up and explained who I was an why I was calling, she agreed to be my date, but had a few conditions: I was paying for everything, and there would be absolutely no sex, don’t even think about it. I happily agreed, I wasn’t a complete looser, I was going to prom and had a date.

My friend M-, another church kid, and I split the cost of a limo, we took our dates to a nice restaurant before hand, steak for everybody. Dinner conversation was pleasant enough, but it was clear that N- was the odd person out at the table, which is to say she had all three of the quiet kids on our heels for most of the conversation.

We finally got to the venue, the music hadn’t yet started and people were milling about, so we wandered group to group chatting. I got to be seen, with a girl, I was happy. As the music was starting up we wandered towards the dance floor, N- began to survey our surroundings looking for something, I however was oblivious. A few minutes later she leans in and says “I’ll be right back, need to do something real quick”, and then slipped into the crowd weaving between people, I lost sight of her only a few feet into the mob. To avoid being completely awkward I slunk back to the refreshments table and had a brief chat with the local gay furry couple, some things never change.

A few minutes later N- emerged from the crowd dragging another girl behind her, marched up to us and deposits the girl she was dragging in front of me. “[Deadname] this is S-, she sat next to you in math class everyday for the last year (this was true), but you’ve never talked to her (also true), you’re an idiot (can’t disagree at this point). S-, [Deadname]; [Deadname], S-. Great now you’ve been introduced, you didn’t have dates before but now you do, good? Excuse me, I have football players to seduce”, and then promptly disappeared back into the crowd.

We danced and talked and were awkward nerds for the rest of the evening. It was a lot of fun, with the occasional interlude of oh gee we have no idea what we’re doing, I’d never put my arms around a girl’s shoulders before, she’d never danced with a boy before.

At some point in the evening N- reemerged from her hunt with M- and date in tow, and informed us “It’s time for pictures, you can’t have prom without pictures”, so we took a pass through the photo station. As we were wrapping up there N- gave S- and I a matronly stare, “You two have exchanged phone numbers, right?”, no we had not, so sheepishly we did so. N- then disappeared back into the crowd.

Just after midnight the music ended and people started to disperse. The crowed thinned around N-, she looked less than completely in control and triumphant for the first time all night. Dejectedly she reported she couldn’t lure any of the football players away from their dates. Oh and by the way S- was her neighbor and was going to be riding back home with us since we were going that way already.

M- and I had spared no expense on this venture… but we were still broke high school students so we’d only rented the limo for the outbound trip. For the return trip the plan was M-‘s dad was a taxi driver, so were just going to have him take us home. This was poorly thought out before we acquired a fifth person. But we did manage to get all five of us into the taxi for the half an hour ride back to the part of town we lived in.

S- and I went on a few more dates after that, we were both pretty awkward, Maybe if things were different we would have had the time to grow and learn to engage with people romantically. But as it was we were going to different universities thousands of miles apart, so just naturally drifted apart.

N- is the only person from that night I’ve talked to post transition. She was not surprised at all. We still keep in contact a few times a year.

Filed under: Auto-biographical - @ 2022-12-22 15:56

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