This weekend is the First-Year Sophomore Semi-Formal and I am not going to lie, when I first found out about this upcoming shindig I couldn’t help but cringe. When I think of a semi-formal, phrases such as “painfully awkward,” “hokey,” and “extremely awkward” come to mind.
You see, high school semi-formals were never my forte. To start, I always put extreme pressure on the whole situation. Hollywood tricked me into thinking semi-formals were magical nights. In the movies, it’s an evening where some random really good-looking person finds you under the disco ball and says “I’ve always loved you and you’re super awesome and we should be together forever.” Yet—for whatever reason—that does not seem to happen in real life.
Instead, high school semi-formals were usually disasters. Just preparing for the dance always took way too much work. I guess it was easier for guys, but us girls always had to find the right dress, and then the right shoes to go with that right dress. After that, we had to make sure we looked good by not only caking our skin in layers of makeup, but also by killing our hair with curlers and straighteners.
In addition, if you weren’t dating someone already, figuring out your date was always a hassle. Obtaining one in the first place was a feat in itself, so if you accomplished that, you deserved a pat on the back. But even then, there were always unclear expectations of what kind of dates you were going to be. Is this a friend thing or are you trying to get in my pants? I could never tell.
Next, once you were there, people never actually slow danced to Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” as they did in the movies. They just grinded all over each other and sloppily made out near you. I’d always walk in, realize I wasn’t having any fun, but then remember I couldn’t leave because I had no car and needed to wait for my mom to pick me up—sad times.
So, as you can imagine, when I first heard that Bowdoin was holding a semi-formal for first years and sophomores I laughed at the whole thing and waved it off.
However, as I gave it more thought I realized something. High school semi-formals were the worst, but this is not high school. We are in college now, and I have never seen a Hollywood movie about a college semi-formal.
Now, I’m not saying that because we are in college this semi-formal will be better than any you may have previously experienced. For all I know this dance will be as painful as all the rest. However, because we have no expectations, there’s no pressure going into this thing. If you don’t like the stress of finding a good date, no worries because no one cares if you go stag—as the invitation read, “Fly solo, or bring your co-pilot.”
If it turns out that there’s no Cyndi Lauper and people are simply grinding all over each other, that’s ok, because that’s what we’re used to now a la College House campus wide. If you end up having a bad time and want to leave, that’s also fine because you can go back to your dorm. You don’t have to wait for your mom to pick you up. She doesn’t go here.
Maybe it’s time to finally take back the semi-formal from Hollywood and give it try. It’s low pressure and there don’t need to be any unforgiving expectations. Plus, I heard there might be smoothies there. And let’s be honest—that may be reason enough to stop by in itself.