> Frankly, I just don't get it. Apparently, convention has it that I'm *supposed* to just drop a few hundred dollars to go to a dance. And people are surprised that I refuse.
>

I didn't go to my school's equivalent of Senior Prom either. (Like Grishny, I went to a private Christian high school, but the Junior-Senior banquet was basically a prom with dancing restrictions. There was dancing, though, just watched REALLY CAREFULLY.)

Do I regret not doing that? Nope. Didn't know how to dance (well, I did, but you don't do ballet or jazz dance at something like that ;)), the chances of any guy asking me were more or less nonexistent, and the idea of being forced into that kind of social situation was (at the time) rather scary. And my little group of 5 friends was in the same boat. Except for the socially-nervous part.

So none of us went, and we did something else on prom night. I can't remember specifically what we did (my memories keep mixing with the dozen other times we had our own fun night on the evenings of school social functions) but I know it was fun. :)

Point being? Um... maybe "even though something might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, if you know you'll be miserable then feel free to skip it without guilt". Yeah, that works.

Sosi"so there"qui