For generations, a staple of the American high school experience has been Prom. If pop culture has taught me anything, it is that a high school Prom has very specific and defining qualities, the most prevalent of which being the fact that you go with a date. There are some pieces of media that revolve solely around a teen’s quest to find the courage to say those seven daunting words, “will you go to Prom with me?” In the end, the plucky young lad is rewarded with a night that will never be forgotten and the most important dance ever to grace a venue floor, while the minor characters that did not have the spunk goes to the dance stag. I feel this is no longer the case, though. Going to Prom stag is no longer seen as a weird or awkward thing as it might have been a decade ago.

As a whole, we are much more accepting than those that danced before us. I am under the impression that a majority of us just want to have a good time, and we do not really care if the person next to us is having a good time with a date or by themselves. There is also the rise of large groups to Prom. In the past, it was not a rarity to see six, maybe eight people in a group to promenade, but now, those groups have expanded severely. I, for example, am going in a group of 17. Of that 17, there are only two couples, and a group of this size is not overly common, but not extremely uncommon, either.

Although Prom can still be an event for a date, it does not as much to this as it has in the past, and the atmosphere is much more welcoming to single participants. There are far less slow dances than there has been in past years. Last year, for example, Prom only played one slow dance out of the entire four hours music was played. This, coupled with large groups that all attend together and the almost rave like atmosphere being presented, lead to an increase of people attending a dance alone that once needed a partner.