The Vine: May 11, 2011
Please bear with the prom drama, as I’m hoping to get your opinion.
My daughter is a high-school sophomore, and was asked to the Junior/Senior Prom by a guy friend. JL, a good friend of hers in the same grade was also asked, but ended up not having the money to get a dress, so she’s not attending.
I took my daughter prom-gown-shopping, and JL and another girl came along for fun/opinions. They both ended up trying on gowns just as a goof, and JL found one that she absolutely loved. Keep in mind, she’s not going to the prom. My daughter didn’t try on that gown for whatever reason, but we both remembered and admired it. We ended up not buying a gown that day.
The following weekend, we went shopping again, just the two of us, to a larger mall. I never attended my prom, lucky me, but going into prom gown stores is a total sensory-overload experience. There are probably around 500 gowns that you could potentially try on, in any conceivable color combination, but upon closer examination, most of them are too slinky/tacky/rhinestoned/Madonna-fied, or just plain ugly. After trying on at least 20 gowns, she ended up trying on the gown her friend JL had loved.
It looked amazing on her, and was by far the nicest one she’d tried on. She loved it, I loved it, and everyone in the dressing room loved it. She did try on one other dress that wasn’t bad, but it was more expensive, a much heaver material, and would need a lot of alterations. However, she was very concerned about JL, and what she would say. I told her that it was ultimately up to her, and left her alone in the dressing room to make up her mind. She ended up going with the amazing gown.
The whole way home, she angsted about the decision. The whole next day she angsted. She had texted JL to let her know about the gown, and JL replied, “I’m devastated, how could you do this to me, you know I loved that gown, my mom was going to get it for me as an early birthday present, there wasn’t one other gown that you could have bought,” blah blah prama-queen-cakes. My daughter is now upset that she hurt her friend, and what the rest of their friends will think, what will be said on Facebook, etc. Bleah!
Who’d have thought I’d be in the midst of all this drama! Do you think she should have gone with another gown, or just told her friend to deal with it (in nicer terms). After all, it’s not like it was her wedding gown, or even the dress she had picked out for her own Senior Prom that she was actually attending. I’m trying to stay out of the whole thing, but I would welcome your opinion.
When did it become just “Prom,” and not “the Prom”?
Dear The Mom,
Hoooo boy. I had to deal with a similar situation back in the day, and if I recall correctly, my bestie and I had two proms to go to — our own and our boyfriends’ (who were BFF themselves) — so we each needed two dresses, and for Prom #2, I picked a dress that she’d planned to wear to Prom #1, but in a different color. I felt like, who cares, it’s blue, not pink, and it’s not for the same night, but Bestie did care, and she asked me to return that dress and getting another one I’d also liked instead. I vaguely remember that I resented giving way on the issue, but I absolutely remember feeling like it was not a hill worth dying on, so I exchanged the dress. (And Bestie did me such a huge favor, too. Peplum. Enough said.)
The situation here is somewhat different, because, although I sort of felt like Bestie should have sucked it up, she did have grounds for the request. Grounds aside, though, to tell you the truth, at that point in a girls’-school senior year, between the college-application drama and the final-play-of-the-school-year-casting drama (well, “drama drama,” I guess) and the prom drama? I just wanted to get my diploma and get out of there without any more fucking crying.
So: I’d have gone with another gown. I know trying on all that jenky rayon is a hassle, I know the dress looked great on your daughter, I know that she had no way of knowing that JL’s mother would offer to buy her the dress, I know it’s absurd and irrational for JL to feel “devastated” about a dress she couldn’t even wear — I know all that.
But I also know how teenage girls get about that kind of thing. JL feels like she saw it first. She feels like it’s “bad enough” that 1) she’s not going to that prom herself and 2) she couldn’t afford her dream dress even if she had gotten an invitation. Now, your daughter is “rubbing it in” by buying her dream dress and wearing it while JL stays home and is ugly and po.
…Oh, I know. I know! It’s childish and self-absorbed and whatever all else. But some teenage girls do not yet distinguish between the experiencing of an emotion and making other people responsible for the management of that emotion, and I agree that JL should probably just “deal with it,” but the thing is, to her, this is dealing with it. Now it falls to your daughter to “deal with” that, and you can try to tell her that not everyone has to, or is going to, sign off on everything she does, and it’ll blow over, but…see above. Putting disappointments and disagreements into context is not necessarily a signature strength at that age.
All that said, while I agree that your daughter is not in the wrong here, I think the only way to have avoided the contretemps is to have bought a different dress. (And I suspect she knew how it would go over, even before she texted JL. Not that she shouldn’t have made the choice she did, but she does have to live with it now; just something for her to consider.) Failing that, I’d suggest she apologize to JL for not realizing how much the dress meant to her — not for buying it, or for anything else; just for appearing insensitive — and try to let it go at that. Don’t play into the idea that it’s a huge deal; don’t give the drama fire any oxygen. If her friends want to get all grievance-committee about it on FB, she can ignore it until they seize on something else. It seldom takes long.
Or there’s the “actually, I’ll just return it…it looks better on your…’body type’ anyway [sucks teeth]” tactic. Take the moral high ground; get a dig in on your way there. Just an idea (which I’m sure your daughter is much too gracious and compassionate to consider) (unlike a certain snitty bitch of yore, who made sure to point out that the dress was “a better cut for someone REALLY SHORT, LIKE YOU”).
Thank God we don’t have to go back to high school, amirite? Anyway: good luck to your daughter, and let us know how it’s going.
Tags: etiquette friendships
Ah, dress duplication drama! Before my senior prom, my best friend wanted to go with a guy I had liked earlier in the school year (back in the fall). I was dating (or, you know, “dating” since it’s high school) someone else by then, but she still asked me if it was okay to ask Previous Guy to prom. I actually thought it was totally unnecessary – of course, I was 18 and not 16 – but I still appreciated that she asked because it made me feel relevant. I think this kind of issue is at play with the dress, here, and JL might not have thrown such a hissy if OP had asked her about it first.
And as proof that the drama doesn’t end with high school: I recently showed up to a law school semi-formal event wearing The. Exact. Same. Cocktail Dress. as a fellow third-year. And pretty much the same shoes. We were laughing about it and obligingly took photos together a la US Weekly, but I really stopped finding it funny when she turned to me and asked, “Oh, haha, did you get yours at Goodwill too?”
I didn’t feel un-furious about THAT until the pictures went up on Facebook. I definitely wore it better, bitch!
I second the “talk to JL’s mom” thing. Was she ACTUALLY going to get JL that dress for her birthday? (Assuming the birthday is within the next few months and not in December, JLMom has the money, and wondering if the store only had one dress in their size, anyway.) If this is an actual thing and not just JL talking out of her butt, I’d talk to JL’s mom and say, “Look, can you just give me the money I paid for this dress and give it to JL?” I think that’s the ONLY possible not-totally-ugly solution to this problem. Taking the dress back may not be possible, and it would suck for the letter writer to just hand over the dress to JL to shut her up and still have to buy her kid another one. If JL’s mom won’t get her the dress, then everyone is just going to have to suck it up and hate each other at this point, I suspect. I kinda doubt take-backs and wearing another dress would soothe the wound because it’s already been made.
I think everyone is kind of being bratty in this situation (it probably doesn’t help that JL is the initials of my ex-bratty BF from elementary school and whee, trigger!), but I can see this being extra-awful to JL because she doesn’t have a prom invite AND had her dream prom dress (for the prom she’s not invited to) stolen under her nose. There really probably isn’t anything you can do short of giving her the dress and a prom date to make this not bad.
I really have nothing constructive to add, as I did not go to prom nor did I have any close friends in high school. And I found it odd that everyone found it odd that I didn’t go. The most attention I ever got in high school was spring of senior year when I was known as The Girl Who Didn’t Go to Prom. Oh the joys of going to a tiny school. I don’t regret my decision to not go, I just wish all the well-meaning people I casually mention this to whenever the subject of prom comes up would stop acting all oh-that’s-terrible-how-sad-for-you!
Anyways, so I’m so glad I avoided any type of drama like this. High school was hard enough for me.
When I was 15, I would have been utterly, full-stop, witness-protection HORRIFIED if my mother had interceded in the situation, on either side. I actually think a convo between the two moms is not a bad idea — but *I*, the mom-aged lady, think that. If the girls or their friends perceive that parents interfered? No thank you.
Not that what the girls perceive is a good guideline here, necessarily, as we’ve established, but if the end goal is to end or at least reduce the dramz to manageable levels, I don’t know that a parental convo is the answer, unless it’s kept secret from the daughters.
Just want to point out that JL (it seems) WAS invited to the prom, but couldn’t go for unspecified money reasons. (Unclear whether it was just the cost of the dress, or other costs too. This is where it gets unclear as to whether her mom buying her the dress as an early birthday present would have enabled JL to go to the prom, too.)
Also not sure that handing over the physical dress is a workable idea; is there any indication that the girls wear the same size?
You know, I wish I’d developed as much perspective about prom as most of the other commenters in the, dear god, 12 years since I graduated.
Is JL overreacting? Of course. She’s a teenager. But I’d argue that OP was being kind of self-centered when she decided to get the dress, knowing full well how JL would feel about it (again: no surprise, she’s a teenager). I mean, now OP will look nice. Whoop-de-doo. Even if JL were more mature in her reaction, her feelings were still going to be hurt. Is that really worth it?
I didn’t go dress shopping with my better-off friends for exactly this reason — it would have made me really envious and bitter. In fact, I’m still a little envious and bitter — and it’s not really the dress. The dress just represents all the experiences my schoolmates had that I missed out because I was a scholarship kid at a ritzy private school. (Granted, the thing about JL’s mother buying her the dress but not for prom…? That’s confusing.) Should my friends have not bought prom dresses because I couldn’t? No, of course not. But if I’d picked out a dream dress I couldn’t afford in front of a friend who then bought that dress for herself, I’d be an upset high school sophomore too.
Here’s the thing though…there was something wonderful about being able to engage in exquisite drama that came to nothing. At 40? Extreme drama is likely to have really extreme consequences. There was something nice about the end of the world being done a the end of the week.
I went to some dance in high school wearing the same dress as another girl (that I wasn’t particularly fond of). I don’t recall any drama at all – we basically ignored the situation. The delicious part of this little episode, however, is that if you’d like to picture the situation, that will be no problem, because the dress in question is the same one Brenda and Kelly fought over in 90210. No, I am not shitting you. SAME DRESS. With the smurfy bows. Which I thought was SO ELEGANT. It was at least twenty years ago and my cheeks are still burning with shame.
On topic! It’s lose-lose. I admit I thought it was a little insensitive to buy the thing when the only reason the girl couldn’t go to prom was because she couldn’t afford it, but that horse is out of the barn. I’d go with others in saying, if your daughter values JL’s friendship, it would be a nice gesture to find a different dress. Normally I would tell JL to suck it, but given the ages of the girls at play, plus the possible economic wrinkle, I’d take the high road on this one.
Oh, I should add, it is worth remembering how brief this time can last and how quickly perspectives can change. In tenth grade I was all into buying the dresses and the shoes and making the plans; in my senior year I turned down a prom invite because I thought the whole thing was stupid. I spent that night like I spent most other weekends my senior year: going to art-house movies and smoking cigarettes at a pool hall. So maybe not the best role model. But I’ve never regretted not going to my prom.
I never thought I’d suggest that anyone take a life lesson from Friends, but this whole situation reminds me of when Monica gave her “perfect” baby name to Rachel. JL could have easily taken the high road by conceding that since she couldn’t have the dress herself, she was at least glad her friend would get to go to prom looking fabulous (and her friend would have owed her, big time). Of course, this might have worked out better if the OP’s daughter had gone to the friend before buying the dress – she could probably have texted JL from the store to tell her the situation and ask if she’d mind. Then again, my mom made my prom dress, so what do I know.
Oh, and what Sars said upthread about mean-spiritedness is exactly why I won’t ever tell my daughter to “just ignore” bullying or harrassment. I took this very standard advice throughout high school, and there are still one or two incidents that haunt me in an “if only I’d said X” way to this day. I think the only reason I wasn’t bothered more is because I was shy and went around with an unintentional perma-frown, so people *thought* I must be mean. As long as it doesn’t become the way you regularly treat your true friends, I don’t see anything wrong with scoring a hit now and then.
I’ve read through the comments twice, but can’t see that anyone answered the “when did THE prom become Prom” question. It’s been bugging me for a few years now. Does anyone know?
Also, I am so grateful for my daughters and her friends. They just all kept trading dresses for each formal occasion. A little tuck in here, a little out there. It was really drama free. Bless their little teen girl hearts!
“I’m sorry this happened! I agree the dress looked great on you, but I honestly didn’t think you were going to the prom, so that’s why I bought it myself. If you are going, I can return the one I got and pick out another, if you want, so that you can buy this one. I’d appreciate some help picking out a new one for myself.”
1. Communicates sympathy
2. Clears charge of insensitivity
3. Offers a major favor
4. Presents opportunity for a small favor in return, performing which favor would save JL face by communicating that things are “ok”
FWIW, I do think it’s valid for JL to feel devastated. There’s a lot of pressure and importance attached to these things. Still, she needs to consider her friend’s feelings too, so blaming her for why she feels devastated is both unfair and insensitive.
Julia K’s suggestion is best, I think.
I never would’ve tried the dress on, tbh. I would’ve considered it JL’s dress, even if she couldn’t have it. At that age the sisterhood/female-loyalty bond is sort of hammered into your head in the most drama queeny way possible, so.
Yeah, that’s fair. (Heh, ph of 2.)
ConchExPat, I remember it being called Prom in the ultimate High School Drama, Pretty In Pink, so at least since the late 80s.
This whole thread is making me think of that Family Guy bit with Peter watching a Dawson’s Creek-esque angst show with the theme song “Highhh Schooool is such a serious timeeee…these problems matter!”
Every time I hear someone refer to “prom” without any “embellishment”, I think of a teary Molly Ringwald in “Pretty in Pink”: “What about PROM, Blaine? … What about PROM???” In my neck o’ the woods (very Northern Philly ‘burbs), it’s always been THE Prom. From what I can tell, it’s still referred to that way in this area. (And for those who are shattered that they went to their prom a decade or two ago – mine was more than three decades ago! Yes, I am *that* old. Gunne Sax for the win. Oy.)
Back to the actual question: I suspect that this debate will wind up being largely hypothetical, since I highly doubt that the LW will be able to return formal wear to the store. So, unless the two prom-ettes are the same size and LW’s daughter can gift her friend JL with the dress-of-doom (assuming it’s not returnable), the daughter may just want to offer a gracious apology to JL and have a great time in the dress she purchased. (I’m really confused about the whole ‘purchase it for her birthday, but she can’t afford it, and she’s not going to the prom anyhow’ scenario!)
I would point out that this crap still happens to me sometimes as a grown woman mumblemumble years out of high school. Case in point: I just returned home from a trip to SE Asia with two girlfriends. We dedicated one full day to shopping in Bangkok (I wouldn’t have had enough room in my bags coming home if we’d done more than a day!). One of my friends saw this gorgeous bag in one of the shops, and I LOVED it. My friend is a purse hound and has eleventy million purses, mostly designer, whereas I basically carry my one nice bag all the time, but this purse…it was special. It was SO PRETTY.
And my friend bought it, and both my friends made this big deal about how I couldn’t ALSO buy it, because it was poor form, or something, and how my first friend had first dibs on it because she saw it first. I had to ask whether they were serious more than once before they convinced me that yes, they absolutely were serious.
I got over it quickly enough and found other bags that I liked (in that city, impossible not to), but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my friends. I feel bad for OP’s daughter. I also feel bad for JL, when it comes down to it- the money thing sucks, as the former poor kid in me can attest.
In a self-aware-most-perception-is-projection vein but saying it anyway:
I’m with C and Sarah and am surprised at the vitriol towards JL. It sucks being poor when everyone else is well-off. It sucks being the one to always smile and laugh it off and say it’s no big deal not to be able to afford the clothes and the shoes and the make-up and the blah blah blah. And it sucks knowing that it’s so fucking easy for everyone else that they don’t even give a passing thought to what you’re missing or what your family is sacrificing; it doesn’t even occur to JL’s friendship group what it must be like to not have the ability to just go out and buy the dress. Constantly being Cinderella with no Fairy Godmother gets a little wearing, y’know? I mean, mice are great company and they sew like champs, and glass slippers pinch like a mofo, but still…
Yes, JL could have acted better. No, her drama doesn’t need to be catered to, because she DOES need to deal with it – and will have to develop the skills to deal with it for the rest of her life. But OP and her daughter could have shown just a LITTLE bit more sensitivity towards JL’s situation. Would it have killed the daughter to text JL before she bought the dress and ask if it was okay? My guess is, that would have done worlds to smooth over any hard feelings.
@Conch, Jen S. 10 and 50 Is The New 35 got there before I did, but when I tried to find it on YouTube — they only have the “ask”, not the fight — instead I found this. Also, yes, it sucks not having a lot of money, and reminded me of my own senior prom. My mom made my dress, which was great; but then we had go pick out a crinoline. So, we went to one of the two big prommy stores in the one mall we had; the store clerk chicks with the crispy bangs showed us their cheapest one, thirty dollars, and my mom says, “Oh, Good lord, her dress didn’t even cost that much.” Then she wonders why I turn six shades of pink and want to get the hell out of there. GOD, being forty is SO. MUCH. BETTER. Seriously
Without sounding like “charity,” why can’t your daughter and JL share the dress? Your daughter wears it to the prom now, and at the next dance JL gets to wear it. Surely your daughter can massage JL’s ego with a “Of course you’re going to get asked to the next prom, you’re so lovable and pretty.” You can decide to split the cost or not.
By that time JL will probably have moved on to the next new pretty dress anyway.
I’m with C, Sarah, and Maggie in sympathizing with JL. And more relevantly, it’s clear from the story (immediate angsting and texting) that the poster’s daughter knew it would upset JL and did it anyway. It’s not inherently bitchy to buy a dress someone else admired, but it is bitchy if you know they will care. And that doesn’t mean you can’t decide to buy the dress, but in reality you can’t act in a way you know is hurtful and demand everyone love you anyway.
I guess I’m in the minority in that I’m %100 on JL’s side. She wants to go to prom, but can’t afford to go. She goes along with her friend and tries on dresses for moral support, and finds a dress she loves but can’t afford. Said friend buys that dress to wear because it is the only one out of all the dresses in all the stores that she likes…right. That she angsts about it right away shows that she knew very well that her friend would be unhappy with the situation and that she just loved the dress more. Yeah, JL should be the bigger person and let it go, but I would never buy a dress that a friend wanted but couldn’t afford to have.
You know, I can’t help but thinking mom created at least a bit of this situation. There’s something about the “ultimately up to her,” and “left her alone in the dressing room to make up her mind,” that suggests to me that the LW was tired of shopping for dresses and maybe nudged her daughter to get this dress. Not to say that I don’t sympathize — my mom had NO patience whatsoever with either shopping or teen drama.
There’s also the “it’s not like it was her wedding gown, etc.” phrasing that just sounds a bit… impatient, dismissive? Again, understandable from an adult perspective, but really, how could you not see that JL, who had been invited to prom but couldn’t afford to go, would be upset (in the way that only teen girls can be) about her BF buying her dream dress? I mean, sure, JL should probably suck it up, but it seems clear that the daughter knew this would backfire — I think that’s why she didn’t text JL — but also didn’t want to frustrate/disappoint mom by not picking the “amazing dress” vs. the other nice gown that needed alterations.
This doesn’t help the daughter’s dilemma now, but might be a thought for the future. “Trying to stay out of it” also means trusting your daughter’s judgement regarding how her friend would react, and not putting her in the middle between making her mom happy and being a good friend.
OH MY GOD. Junior prom. 1990. My best friend told me about the blue satin, puffed/beribboned/sequinned, sweetheart-off-the-shoulder, slightly-a-lined ankle length dress she’d bought & was totally in love with. Do any of you remember prom, 1990? I just described EVERY SINGLE DRESS that year. Cut to me, two weeks before prom, thinking “oh hell, I have to get a prom dress” (I was SO not a girly-girl)…so I hit up the prom dress store at the mall and find a super-last-chance-70%-off-no-refund-no-return blue dress for like $50 and figure enh, this will do.
You know where this is headed.
EXACT SAME DRESS. OH MY GOD, THE DRAMA. I was all “hey, we just have such great taste, we’re such a team, and don’t even worry, with our hair different & our accessories different and yadda yadda, it will be so totally okay!” She did not agree and I kid you not, she never, ever spoke to me again. At least, not civilly and nor in any manner that wasn’t vindictive and backstabby.
For the record, I looked way better in that dress. Although, looking back at the photos….I’m not sure there really was a winner in the situation. Oh, early 90s “fashion”. So frightening!
Hi all, “The Mom” here. Well, things have definitely settled down in Prom girl world. JL was in a snit for a few days, but since has forgotten the incident, and she and my daughter are friends again. My daughter decided to go the, “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know it meant so much to you” route, then never brought it up again. I told her this was the wisest course of action.
I’m not sure if JL was serious about her mom buying it as a birthday present for her. I know her mom just casually, and she seems like a very sensible, no-drama person, so I’m sure she just rolled her eyes (privately) at her daughter’s shenanigans and let her vent. I feel badly for her, though, because she’s a single mom, and I’m sure finances are tight. Trying to teach teenagers the value of saving birthday money, etc., is a futile effort.
Ugh, I hate Prom season! The dresses are way overpriced, and are all non-returnable. As a few mentioned above, the stores are afraid that the person will tuck in the tag, wear it once, and then return it, so I can’t say as I blame them. Looking back on all this, I’m even happier I ended up not going to my senior prom. Thanks for your input, everyone!