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I can't be the only one who noticed it. It seems like every school event above 4th grade is overwhelmingly couple-centric: pretty much all the dances, roller skating nights, obviously the prom, and even some athletic games too. Coming without a date can harm your reputation. (Theatre plays and band concerts seem to be the exception, but these aren't exactly "cool" things in the school world.) The school officials always say that a date isn't required and you can come with friends, but unwritten social message is clear as day: come with a date or don't come at all. Whatever the school officials do to send a "date mandatory!" message, intentionally or unintentionally, it does happen.
I, personally, think this is a bad idea. First off, it causes relationships to be driven by a strife for social status, rather than by feelings of love and attraction. Second, because coming to those events with a date is considered cool, it causes kids to mindlessly rush into relationships just to join the "cool kids club". Those relationships can be good sometimes, but equally often, they can be incompatible or even toxic. Breakups can be painful as well.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,690 posts, read 57,994,855 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MillennialUrbanist
I can't be the only one who noticed it. It seems like every school event above 4th grade is overwhelmingly couple-centric: ... I, personally, think this is a bad idea. ...
Thoughts?
Thoughts... Many (millions) of us think SCHOOL (USA style) is a bad idea.
Social development? When else in LIFE will you be forced to be in an age segregated holding pen, waiting for the Kill Floor?
Fortunately we never had to deal with dating (Grandparents, parents, kids, grandkids, spouses). Developing natural and genuine / caring relationships is a better start, than playing a "Façade" game to impress your peers.
Don't be disappointed, just be more responsible. caring, 'adult like'.
Life is fragile, handle with care. (That includes emotional / validation / feelings of others)
Don't hurt them (intentionally or not).
I had several classmates die during school years, that was very humbling for learning the importance of how to treat / respect others. You may not get the opportunity to say "I'm sorry, I was very thoughtless of your feelings. I will purpose to honor you and others in the future."
Location: As of 2022….back to SoCal. OC this time!
9,297 posts, read 4,570,402 times
Reputation: 7613
Quote:
Originally Posted by MillennialUrbanist
I can't be the only one who noticed it. It seems like every school event above 4th grade is overwhelmingly couple-centric: pretty much all the dances, roller skating nights, obviously the prom, and even some athletic games too. Coming without a date can harm your reputation. (Theatre plays and band concerts seem to be the exception, but these aren't exactly "cool" things in the school world.) The school officials always say that a date isn't required and you can come with friends, but unwritten social message is clear as day: come with a date or don't come at all. Whatever the school officials do to send a "date mandatory!" message, intentionally or unintentionally, it does happen.
I, personally, think this is a bad idea. First off, it causes relationships to be driven by a strife for social status, rather than by feelings of love and attraction. Second, because coming to those events with a date is considered cool, it causes kids to mindlessly rush into relationships just to join the "cool kids club". Those relationships can be good sometimes, but equally often, they can be incompatible or even toxic. Breakups can be painful as well.
Thoughts?
Ofc prom & dances are couple centered.......but IMO other school events aren't. It's all about groups of friends at athletic games...even if you have a date, you sit with other friends. People have study groups with friends...they join clubs & activities with friends AND they catch a ride home with friends. Having a date IMO doesn't make you popular....specially if you're dating somebody that is unpopular. It's having lots of friends. AND...it's high school for pete's sakes.......it's not like you need to put lots of thought into it with plans to marry. IMO those relationships are necessary to teach us about what is toxic ...& to learn about dating, birth control & all that stuff.....before going off to college or being on our own.
My children graduated in 2001 and 2006 and their HS wasn't like that. Very often groups of friends would go to the formal homecoming dance together. And, even prom had some people going as singles or with groups of friends (either same sex friends or boys and girls as friends). This was even more true in their MS. It was rare for the students to "couple up" at school activities even for the dances.
Is it possible that you were looking at a few prominent couples and thinking that everyone else were couples, too?
I can't be the only one who noticed it. It seems like every school event above 4th grade is overwhelmingly couple-centric: pretty much all the dances, roller skating nights, obviously the prom, and even some athletic games too. Coming without a date can harm your reputation. (Theatre plays and band concerts seem to be the exception, but these aren't exactly "cool" things in the school world.) The school officials always say that a date isn't required and you can come with friends, but unwritten social message is clear as day: come with a date or don't come at all. Whatever the school officials do to send a "date mandatory!" message, intentionally or unintentionally, it does happen.
I, personally, think this is a bad idea. First off, it causes relationships to be driven by a strife for social status, rather than by feelings of love and attraction. Second, because coming to those events with a date is considered cool, it causes kids to mindlessly rush into relationships just to join the "cool kids club". Those relationships can be good sometimes, but equally often, they can be incompatible or even toxic. Breakups can be painful as well.
Thoughts?
Yes.
How long have you been out of grade school? High school?
Seems an odd thing to still be obsessed about.
I have kids currently in the school system and I would disagree strongly with every single part of your premise. Based on actual real-world current experience.
I can't be the only one who noticed it. It seems like every school event above 4th grade is overwhelmingly couple-centric: pretty much all the dances, roller skating nights, obviously the prom, and even some athletic games too. Coming without a date can harm your reputation. (Theatre plays and band concerts seem to be the exception, but these aren't exactly "cool" things in the school world.) The school officials always say that a date isn't required and you can come with friends, but unwritten social message is clear as day: come with a date or don't come at all. Whatever the school officials do to send a "date mandatory!" message, intentionally or unintentionally, it does happen.
I, personally, think this is a bad idea. First off, it causes relationships to be driven by a strife for social status, rather than by feelings of love and attraction. Second, because coming to those events with a date is considered cool, it causes kids to mindlessly rush into relationships just to join the "cool kids club". Those relationships can be good sometimes, but equally often, they can be incompatible or even toxic. Breakups can be painful as well.
Thoughts?
It's a good idea to have events that aren't driven by what's convenient to you. You can't always have things all set up according to how your life is going. You have to make adjustments. Find a friend to go with. Not all date partners have to be based on sexual attraction. If you really want to go, find another family with a girl/boy and go out on practice dates before the event.
School was like that when I was young. I never went to a single dance, prom, anything like that because I did not have a date (my first real relationship was after high school). If you didn't have a date, you didn't go.
My kids' experience has been entirely different (they are currently 15, 17, 21). True, they have gone to smallish private schools, so I don't know if the scene is different from the public schools, but going to events WITHOUT a date has been the norm. They go with a group of friends and all have fun dancing and hanging out together. There are always a few kids who are "couples" but they are fewer and farther between. It seems to me that the expectation that boys and girls should be paired up by the age of 15, and anyone "single" is a social outcast, is pretty much gone.
I like it much better this way and am happy that my kids have been able to enjoy the high school events that I missed out on.
I was surprised by my kids. They rarely attended things in couples. They went to everything in groups. The groups sometimes included a few couples, but it was mostly just a mob. They danced in groups rather than in couples, even if they had a date. To me, it seemed far less couple centric than what I remembered. In fact, most of our kids never really dated seriously in high school, nor did their friends. They either just did the group thing or had a light date here or there. We had three girls and two boys (now 20-28). This was in public school.
At least some of them seemed to have an outlook on dating as a learning experience more than a romantic one. In the last month of high school, my some discovered his long time crush also had a crush on him. they decided there was no point in exploring dating since they were soon to be off to different colleges anyway. There was not time to really learn anything from it and it would have to end when they graduated, so why bother? Seems like an odd outlook.
Really? Kids are driven to get involved in "relationships" (whatever that means at age 10, 11), just to be cool and have a date for the school musical, sports competitions, etc.? in my experience and observations, both as a student and as a teacher for awhile, kids are not a herd. There are all kinds of sub-groups: the popular kids (who generally are motivated to conform to the cliches you describe), the geeky groups, the counter-culture types, the quiet loners who might have 1 friend, etc. etc. A lot of kids don't even care about the prom or sports events, and think most school events are lame. The entire senior class a friend of mine was in, voted to bag the prom, and have a beach day together as a group.
OP, you'd be a lot happier, IMO, if you'd stop digging up couple-/dating/marriage-related topics to ruminate about. You're basically conjuring scenarios over which to beat yourself up and rail about society and social expectations. Does that make you happy? I think not.
How's the weather in your part of the country today? If it's a nice day, not too hot, why not go outside for a nice walk somewhere? Get out of your head. You're turning it into a toxic environment.
OP, you'd be a lot happier, IMO, if you'd stop digging up couple-/dating/marriage-related topics to ruminate about. You're basically conjuring scenarios over which to beat yourself up and rail about society and social expectations. Does that make you happy? I think not.
How's the weather in your part of the country today? If it's a nice day, not too hot, why not go outside for a nice walk somewhere? Get out of your head. You're turning it into a toxic environment.
amen
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Ofc prom & dances are couple centered...
....but IMO other school events aren't. It's all about groups of friends at athletic games...even if you have a date, you sit with other friends. People have study groups with friends...they join clubs & activities with friends AND they catch a ride home with friends. Having a date IMO doesn't make you popular....specially if you're dating somebody that is unpopular. It's having lots of friends. AND...it's high school for pete's sakes.......it's not like you need to put lots of thought into it with plans to marry. IMO those relationships are necessary to teach us about what is toxic ...& to learn about dating, birth control & all that stuff.....before going off to college or being on our own.
