Instead of waiting for guys to ask them to the prom in viral “promposal” fashion, teenage girls are taking matters into their own hands and asking their own dates.
For nearly as long as prom has existed, high schoolers have expected young men to make the first move and ask their female classmates. This isn't any different from so many other gender-specific expectations and assumptions that are made around dating and romance: guy likes her, guy asks girl to prom, guy and girl go to prom.
But this isn't the only possible scenario. Not only are there are plenty of same-sex couples who attend these dances together, but there are also opposite-sex couples who end up at the prom together because girls are the ones who ask their dates.
Every year on the internet we see a plethora of viral "promposals" acted out by teenage boys — the "guy asking a girl" narrative is mostly what we see played out publicly — but this year especially, teenage girls are taking matters into their own hands by flipping tradition on its head and asking their dates.
After posting evidence of their promposals to Instagram, some high schoolers even used hashtags like #HeSaidYes and #ScrewSocialStandards to make note of how the role reversal is an important one. They're not wrong; for viral promposals, where visibility is key, teenage girls are helping redefine this traditionally gendered gesture.
Gabriella Garza is a 17-year-old senior from Florida who asked her date to prom because she wanted to beat her boyfriend to it.
"I am very independent and I love surprising people. I also hate social standards that say women can't ask men to prom or on dates," Garza told BuzzFeed. "So I decided to ask him."
The high schooler and her boyfriend love eating Chinese food together, so she saved an old fortune cookie, used tweezers to remove the original fortune, and then replaced it with a fortune she typed up and printed out on her computer asking him to the prom. She also opted not to film it because she "knew that would make it obvious" and because it "adds pressure to the person being asked."
When it came to other people's reactions, Garza says she was given an attitude by many people and was told that guys are the ones who are supposed to ask girls. "But at the end of the day, I already did it and I would do it again," she said.
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