In the spirit of Valentine's Day today I'm going to share the story of my very first dance. It was in 6th grade, but it was almost Halloween, not Valentine's Day. Since it was almost Halloween we were welcome to wear our Halloween costumes, though it wasn't officially a costume party. I decided to go since the idea of going to a real dance made me feel grown up.
So, the red flag was this dance was during daylight hours. It started almost immediately after school let out, and ended at 5. Stupidly nobody in my family thought it was too weird for a middle school dance. I went home long enough to throw down my backpack and throw on my costume before going back to school.
After paying $5 to get into the cafeteria I noticed a lot of familiar faces all over the place. Everywhere I looked I saw either my classmates, or other people I knew for a fact were also sixth graders: there were absolutely no seventh or eighth graders at this dance.
Around the time I realized there were only sixth graders there I noticed that the music was pretty lame. It wasn't Kidz Bop (which was new at the time), but it was lame pop music that nobody would admit to listening to because at this school you'd get your ass kicked if you didn't listen to adult groups like Eminem. It turned out to be a radio station, likely because the teachers were too cheap to buy a couple CDs and they didn't want us to listen to uncensored music.
Since lunch was hours ago I decided I wanted to have something to eat and went to find the snack table. While I eventually found the food and drinks, there were a few teachers there guarding the table because, surprise, it wasn't included in the admission! If I wanted anything I'd have to fork over money for a bag of chips. I always thought that was included in the admission, especially since it cost $5 per person: more than enough to buy a dozen bags of chips and soda 2-liters. The snack teachers gave me a look and told me it was completely normal and I was stupid to think otherwise.
After that since I had nothing else to do I decided to find the dance floor. I wasn't dating anyone, but I didn't mind dancing by myself in the group. I found a cleared area in the crowd by the stage that was probably supposed to be the designated dancing area, but nobody was dancing. As I watched a couple walked out into it and started to dance. As soon as they did a teacher appeared out of nowhere and chased them apart. And not even "stay an arms length apart", straight up no dancing together, period. At a dance. Now I understood why only sixth graders showed up: the upper classmen already knew how exceptionally lame our school's dances are and saw zero reason to show up.
At this point since there was absolutely nothing else to do I found a classmate who lived in the same neighborhood as me and we spent the next hour and a half shittalking the dance and our teachers. People left in droves fifteen, even twenty minutes ahead of the official end time because there was no reason to stay. As they did teachers told them they'd have to pay to be re-admitted, as if they'd actually want to come back.
Dance ended, I went home and complained to my mom and sister how much it sucked at dinner. They were shocked at how lame it was, and also insisted that paying for food on top of the admissions was not normal, like the bitchy snack teachers told me.
Months passed, February rolled around and a Valentine's Day dance was advertised, but no one I knew went. The surprising thing was that people actually showed up to it, but not many. They didn't bother to hold any more until fall semester, when they had a new batch of unsuspecting suckers sixth graders to trick into attending.
Needless to say I didn't go to any more middle school dances. I was so put off I didn't go to any in high school either, except for Prom. Prom was hella expensive but at least it was a proper dance, where you could dance with your boyfriend/girlfriend, food was included in the price, and we had a real DJ playing songs off of CDs. Prom was an absolute blast.
