By my fourth time through, I'm counting on Sadie Hawkins being kind of a walk in the park. I'm planning on hanging out with some of my closest friends before and after and bringing a date that I know I like being around, both of which usually help things to go pretty smoothly. I'm planning on keeping awkward moments to a minimum and enjoying myself, which you'd think would be a given. If you were to stalk back through my Facebook timeline (like I may have just done), however, it would tell you a different story. Apparently, I like to subject myself to unnecessarily difficult / awkward situations, especially when the first weekend in February rolls around every year. In honor of finally getting Sadie's right, let's take a walk down memory lane and take a look at all the ways I've gotten it wrong. It's okay to laugh.
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| Please enjoy this 8th grade webcam selfie. #nofilter. |
Freshman Year // February, 2012
My first ever Sadie Hawkins started out a little rough - as in, from the moment I asked my date to the dance. After a lot of thinking and Google searching (to absolutely no avail - thanks, Google) I'd decided to put the poor kid through a rigorous scavenger hunt involving an extensive tour of the school and as many friends and teachers as I could possibly involve. Everything went well until the last teacher dropped the ball and forgot the tell him to go to the courtyard, where I was waiting to pop the invitation. End result: I was forced to duck inside, motion for him to come meet me, and go back out to my post to act like nothing had gone wrong. He said yes with an audience of at least fourteen excited freshman girls watching it all through the huge cafeteria windows.
The actual dance was mostly uneventful, if you don't bring up a close call involving our waitress and a butter knife when we were out to dinner before hand. So I don't usually bring that up.
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| Most of the pictures turned out like this, so that's fun. |
Sophomore Year // February, 2013
I think I succeeded at being awkward the best this year. For reasons that I will never understand, I decided to ask a boy who I'd only ever talked to once in my life to go with me. Bad. No. Ugh, I cringe just writing about it. I mean, physical pain. The things I do for this blog, I tell ya. Since I'd rarely talked to him before, I sought outside intelligence in the form of the school gossip, who told me he'd say yes, which he did. So far, so good.
There's a tradition at my high school of matching t-shirts with your date to Sadie Hawkins. I had plans to go T-shirt shopping with my date after school the Friday before Sadie's, but we ended up having a snow day, which turned into my dad driving me around on really unsafe roads in search of a shirt to wear at almost the last minute. It was an endless cycle of rocking our minivan back and forth to get it out of the snow, driving to the next store, tearing through every T-shirt rack with reckless intensity, frantically taking pictures of every possible candidate and sending them to a carefully chosen jury of friends, loved ones, and certified fashion experts, and leaving in my wake a store that looked like it had endured war rather than an emotionally unstable teenage girl.
By the time we'd seen (and wrecked) more than enough boutiques, custom T-shirt stands, and department stores for both of us, my dad and I were both ready to get home and decided that this store would be our last stop, even if they didn't sell T-shirts at all. (Don't worry; they had T-shirts. I didn't have to go to Sadie Hawkins shirtless.) I'd just begun my usual unfolding - and - rejecting number when I found it. The shirt. It was black, and said "YOLO" on it, except one of the Os had been replaced with a peanut butter cup. Why was this shirt perfect, you ask? Well, it just so happened that my date was allergic to peanut butter. Like, deathly allergic. Please tell me you see the irony in that? Sadistic? Maybe. But funny. A Reese's cup was definitely a YOLO kind of thing for him, and my deranged, overworked brain found that hilarious.
Also, the shirts only came in girls' cuts, AKA short sleeves, a much slimmer fit, and a lower neckline. I bought him an extra large, but the feminine-ness was still painfully obvious. He commented at one point that if he hadn't had a shirt on underneath, I'd be able to see cleavage. He was probably right. So, there's that.
To make matters worse, he didn't get the joke. Not even close.
Junior Year // February 2014
Actually, last year may have been my most successful Sadie Hawkins yet. I actually knew my date and we had a good time and I was wise enough to buy mens t-shirts. The only awkward thing that came into play there was the fact that I volunteered us to go out before the dance with a friend and his date, who he didn't know very well at all, for moral support. You guys, never, ever, ever let me volunteer myself to help make your social situation less awkward. If you need someone to stand silently in the kitchen with your date, petting your dog and making the occasional completely irrelevant, off-the-wall comment while you talk to your date's parents and siblings your own parents and siblings all at once, I'm your girl. If you need someone to actually make the encounter smoother and less stressful, please pick someone else. Please.
Senior Year // February 2015
Who knows. With Sadie's two days away, I'm planning on bringing a date but have get to ask him, buy t-shirts, or even make plans for how to ask him. I'd say that there's a lot of potential for good / embarrassing stories in that.
I'll let you know how it goes!
Allie
Alright, spill it. Any embarrassing school dance stories? I'd even be open to made up ones, if you think it would make me feel less alone.
By the time we'd seen (and wrecked) more than enough boutiques, custom T-shirt stands, and department stores for both of us, my dad and I were both ready to get home and decided that this store would be our last stop, even if they didn't sell T-shirts at all. (Don't worry; they had T-shirts. I didn't have to go to Sadie Hawkins shirtless.) I'd just begun my usual unfolding - and - rejecting number when I found it. The shirt. It was black, and said "YOLO" on it, except one of the Os had been replaced with a peanut butter cup. Why was this shirt perfect, you ask? Well, it just so happened that my date was allergic to peanut butter. Like, deathly allergic. Please tell me you see the irony in that? Sadistic? Maybe. But funny. A Reese's cup was definitely a YOLO kind of thing for him, and my deranged, overworked brain found that hilarious.
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| I have not other photographic evidence of the YOLO shirt, because it hurts too much. Special thanks to Photo Grid for helping me to protect my friends' identities. |
Also, the shirts only came in girls' cuts, AKA short sleeves, a much slimmer fit, and a lower neckline. I bought him an extra large, but the feminine-ness was still painfully obvious. He commented at one point that if he hadn't had a shirt on underneath, I'd be able to see cleavage. He was probably right. So, there's that.
To make matters worse, he didn't get the joke. Not even close.
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| Did I mention that bowling comes invariably with school dances? I'd like to think that I've gotten more mature when it comes to bowling, but the truth is that I usually get frustrated after my fifth gutter ball and start pouting, because what competition is fun when you're not winning? |
Junior Year // February 2014
Actually, last year may have been my most successful Sadie Hawkins yet. I actually knew my date and we had a good time and I was wise enough to buy mens t-shirts. The only awkward thing that came into play there was the fact that I volunteered us to go out before the dance with a friend and his date, who he didn't know very well at all, for moral support. You guys, never, ever, ever let me volunteer myself to help make your social situation less awkward. If you need someone to stand silently in the kitchen with your date, petting your dog and making the occasional completely irrelevant, off-the-wall comment while you talk to your date's parents and siblings your own parents and siblings all at once, I'm your girl. If you need someone to actually make the encounter smoother and less stressful, please pick someone else. Please.
Senior Year // February 2015
Who knows. With Sadie's two days away, I'm planning on bringing a date but have get to ask him, buy t-shirts, or even make plans for how to ask him. I'd say that there's a lot of potential for good / embarrassing stories in that.
I'll let you know how it goes!
Allie
Alright, spill it. Any embarrassing school dance stories? I'd even be open to made up ones, if you think it would make me feel less alone.
P.S. Linking up with Nicolefor Treat Yo'self Thursday!
