The Psychology of the Promposal

The promposal has become more important than the dance.

What in the world is a promposal, you may ask? It’s the craze that has swept high schools across the country where a boy comes up with some elaborate, very public gesture to ask a girl to prom. In my daughter’s high school, it has filtered down to the homecoming dance as well.

Think about the guy who has an airplane fly a banner around a crowded football stadium with a marriage proposal. While we might have an initial, “Oh how sweet!” thought. My next thought is always, “I hope she really wants to marry this guy, because with this proposal, he really left her no choice.”

Back in the late 80’s when I was a teen and the dinosaurs roamed the earth, asking a girl to prom was a more intimate affair. Dating couples always went together. Who else would you go with besides your boyfriend/girlfriend? There were kids who had “liked” each other for awhile and they would get the courage to quietly inquire about each other’s feelings. (Note quietly, usually through a trusted friend, not on Instagram for the entire student body to see.) They would often end up at prom together. Then there were teens that would go as friends, no romance involved at all. The system seemed to work out beautifully.

Now, there’s a competition among all boys to see who can come up with the grandest gesture. I Googled the word promposal and go thirteen million hits. You Tube has forty-six thousand videos of promposals. Now I may be a little old-fashioned here, but it seems to me the shift has gone from the girl to the boy. It’s become about his gesture, not about her answer and it’s certainly not about going together to the dance. They all desperately want to make it on You Tube.

What has happened? We can definitely blame it on social media along with reality television. The entire world wants their fifteen minutes and like the bratty girl in Willy Wonka, “They want it now!” But, I think there’s something deeper going on here. These kids are no longer engaged in true face-to-face relationship.

They are hyper-focused on how things look and competition. There was even one school who had a contest for the best promposal. Do these kids really need more pressure to be self-focused?

I’m all for romance. But, if you think about some of the most romantic moments in your life, were they in front of hundreds of people? I think true romance is between two people. Today’s teens are boasting two hundred Instagram friends and Twitter followers, but they are lonely. Even the kids who are going as friends are pressured to do the huge gesture.

Why? I think maybe we need to talk to our boys about what teen girls really seek. Don’t the girls really just want to feel special and appreciated? Don’t they still appreciate hand-holding, having doors opened for them, dinner and a movie or flowers? Isn’t there some highly technical way to make a mixed tape for that special girl?

Maybe we really need to encourage our teens to get out of the wide wide world of cyberspace and into the three-dimensional world of actual people and real world dating. If they can’t learn to talk face-to-face and problem solve in their relationships, what will their future marriages look like?

I think the answer is relationship. We need to treasure relationship with each other, with our spouses and with our kids. We need to teach them the importance of relationship and encourage them to pursue it. We were not meant to sit alone in a room while we shine in cyberspace. School dances weren’t designed around who has the greatest promposal. It’s all about relationship. It always has been.

What do you think about promposals and relationship? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂