The Fear of Being Alone at the Prom

I want to say I had fun at my first prom but I didn’t. It made me feel untold emotions of fear, loneliness, and depression. In the story “The Terror” Diaz had a similar experience with fear taking over. While I could have danced with a different girl, I felt fear and loneliness from a bad prom date. My date left me for her boyfriend, and I had no one because his date rejected me. After prom I wasn't invite to anyone's house; so, I just cried myself to sleep, and I feared that nobody would ever hangout or appreciate me. Everybody has experienced fear at least once in their life. It’s second nature, without fear we wouldn’t have survived as a species. We have to flee when we can’t comprehend the situation. My fear is myself being lonely in life with no friends to help me. My fear taught me to look at life in a different way because of a bad experience with my first prom date.

Let’s travel back to my Junior year in high school, spring like weather, warm wind blowing in my face. Everyone is excited talking about going this year’s prom with each other. I was cutting it close to the deadline of who would go with me. Before I asked my prom date, I asked an incredibly shy girl to prom. She had dark black long hair, teal eyes, and a white smile you couldn’t resist smiling back to. I never really talked to her before, but I kind of had a small crush on her. This is probably the reason she denied me to go to prom which I was fine with. The problem was after; she couldn’t look me in the eye turning her head away from me in the hallway. This event made me look at myself as being ugly, unwanted, depressed.

But this did not stop my quest of getting a date to this “magical” prom night. So, my friend told me of a girl who was in need of a date. “Why not?” I said to myself. This girl isn’t that bad she looks very outgoing as well. The girl said yes because she needed a date, so I was happy at the time I have a good-looking date. Little did I know I was trapped in a confusing love triangle. My friend N a tall, athletic, frizzy haired guy who can drive at the time was currently dating my prom date but was taking his ex as his prom date. If I hadn’t have known this I wouldn’t have went with my date to prom. I essentially was used as a lock pick to open the locked door to opportunity.

We eventually drove off to where the prom was being held. Now the dance floor was so small not even fifty people could fit. It had a light oak texture tile flooring around surrounded the carpet for the dining hall. We then sat at are assigned tables to eat some appetizers that were being passing around. The room smelled of a nice stripe of crispy bacon. The food came along and is was not bad, but it wasn’t of something I would crave or to die for. My meal consisted of saucy stuffed cheese shells, buttery mashed potatoes, and white roasted chicken. The food in my opinion could have been a lot better but I enjoyed it because the evening was still young.

Once 7:00 pm hit the dancing started. Although the music was crappy modern pop music. The dance floor was crowded with flashing lights reflecting off everyone’s clothing. It was quite difficult to dance on, but I managed to adapt to it. My first slow dance starts, and I get to dance with my date. I'm really just a nervous wreck kind of shaking because I'm not at all used to dancing in a quiet slow motion. By the smug look on her face I could tell she didn’t want to slow dance at all.

At this point in time I really was enjoying everything at prom the lights, atmosphere, the food etc. The second slow dance started. I try to find my date, but L was with N and he yelled out go dance with M. I then find her and ask 'Hey M want to dance?' M said 'No thank you!' I walk away and go grab a drink of water. I stood there alone with nobody to slow dance to. I felt this dark wallowing feeling in my stomach. This feeling of melancholy slowly took over my mind. I felt like I was unworthy to dance with anyone. All I wanted to do was just have fun it’s not like I was in love with his date and this anxiety took over me I just didn't feel like dancing anymore.

After prom was over and I went home I was still in a deep muck. Nobody to dance with or flail their arms around screaming song lyrics loudly. I stared outside of the car in a bleak empty look. As quoted by Junot Diaz, the author of “The Terror,” “The fear remained. An awful withering dread” (7), I felt this feeling of not being accepted or being outcasted in a stream of loneliness. I had no friends to comfort me in the time of uncontrollable emotions. It’s like the only friend I did have was actually my fear itself. Diaz was right again, “I guess I should have told someone, but I was too humiliated.” (7). At that time my mind was racing with dark thoughts, I wasn’t ready to speak.

I get home to do what any other kid does, explore the internet. Before I went to bed that night, I accounted what happened to reflect. I posted on a forum asking if anyone else had a terrible prom experience. I was shocked to find out there was other people like me. It didn’t completely help my depressive loneliness. However, this forum told me to talk with my Dad or my Mom about what happened. The next day I finally explain what has been eating away at me to my Dad. He informed me that this is just a phase of your life that you’ll look back and say that sucked. I needed to move forward no matter what. Right there I snapped out of it to realize I can make new better memories or make friends.

In conclusion fear taught me to look at life in a different way because of a bad experience with my first prom date. If it wasn’t for prom, I wouldn’t have felt this dark feeling of being alone. If my prom date didn’t leave me for her boyfriend this may have never happened. If I got to slow dance with the other date with, I still felt being lonely. Not to mention the help of my Dad. I started to realize this is just a phase in life. Sure, it sucks right now but everything gets better as time moves forward. If you let fear take over how can you move on with your life? I can make new friends not worrying about the fear of loneliness taking hold of my daily life.