Are you prepared for prom? Have you checked off each bullet point on your To-Do List to ensure absolute success during your once in a lifetime evening? The answer for most of you is probably a large resounding NO. Not to worry – I’m here to tell you exactly what to do to fit in with societal expectations of “Prom Norms.”

First, get a date. Obviously. If you’re a boy, find your girlfriend, or a close girl friend, or a girl with whom you occasionally chat, or just any female within the nearest 50-foot radius. Do all that it takes to get a date – no one wants to be the kid who has to hug himself for the pre-prom pictures.

Small traditions are crucial to the success of prom; however, even perfectly accepted societal standards may face critics. Srinivas Mandyam ‘16 audaciously claims, “I think most of the traditions are pointless. The fact that the guy ‘has’ to ask the girl creates too much awkwardness. When you have girls who want to go to prom with a date but haven’t been asked or don’t know if they’re going to be asked in time and who get paralyzed by the ‘tradition’ of not being able to ask a guy—that’s pretty pointless.”

Pointless? Without boys asking girls to prom, what would be left to lock society into its rigid cage of expected gender roles?

After you have found this girl, go to the nearest craft store and buy a 4’ by 3’ poster and illustrate an amusing pun about any characteristic of the girl whom you have chosen. Show up at her house and present her with a bouquet of flowers. Pick a popular friend with a significant social presence to tag along and take a picture of you with your new prom date (of course she would say yes, who could turn down a pun?).

This next part is simple yet arguably the most crucial step of prom: mandate that your designated friend posts the picture on Facebook, for the number of likes on this picture determines the success of your promposal.

If you are a girl, you must not ask a boy to prom. Just wait until a boy asks you or stay at home. Who could possibly live with the embarrassment and ignominy of asking someone to prom yourself, or even worse, going to prom with a group of friends or even going alone? Disgusting.

While some “modern” girls may believe that it is acceptable to for girls to ask boys to prom, they are heavily mistaken. Claire Jones ‘17 misguidedly asserts, “I think it’s archaic that boys are expected to ask girls to prom and girls who ask boys to prom are seen as weird. As a girl I didn’t like that tradition because I felt helpless to choose who I wanted to go with; I had to just wait passively.” Jones claims that waiting for a boy to ask her to prom reduces her to a “helpless” female stereotype, but in reality, the lack of choice and elongated anticipation actually provide a thrilling and empowering period of self-development and reflection for the girls.

From here the fun only begins: be sure to gather a group of ten decently tolerable people to sit with at your perfect prom table. Be sure to select your group very carefully, which should not be difficult since each student at Ridge only has nine friends, who conveniently are friends with the same nine people! This group is very important, for everyone knows that no one actually leaves his or her table at prom. The party is not on the dance floor; it is at your exclusive table. No one needs to broaden their social circles. Ten is enough: any number of friends less than nine is unacceptable while eleven is a crowd.

All this preparation (the promposal, the Facebook post, the prom table, in addition to the dresses and tuxes and what even are corsages?) will guarantee that you have the most picturesque prom experience as anyone else who has completed the exact same routine.

Evidently, this routine exaggerates the intensity to which people stress about the social politics of prom, when people should not stress about social politics at all. Enjoy prom, experience all the milestones and traditions, but never be afraid to blaze your own path. Ask a girl to prom, ask a boy to prom, go by yourself, or go with a group of friends. Step outside your comfort zone with old and new friends alike. Challenge yourself to live through Polaroid-camera-worthy moments without having to take the pictures to prove it. After all it is a “once in a lifetime experience,” so don’t be afraid to experience your life.