Something for you.
Something for me.
Something for the football team?
Now what to make of this? A related search “How do I get my girlfriend to” turns up some similar, unsurprising and funny results. Among the ten: to let me go down on her, to kiss me, to respect me, to take me back — and my favorite: to break up with me. But for some reason, this permutation returns only three. And of those three, one is “how to ask my girlfriend to homecoming.”
Ah, high school, before we knew what the hell we were missing and age made a mess of things down there. When asking your best girl to the pep rally was the be-all, end-all. But wait. Homecoming? Shouldn’t it at least be, like, prom or something? I grew up in Manhattan; I just don’t get the whole homecoming thing. Our homecoming party was at a club where I got frisked so intently at the door I may have walked out of there technically not a virgin. I don’t remember any sports games, but I can only assume we lost, and I sure as heck don’t remember it being a big deal who you went with. Just who kept grabbing your ass and who you made out with in the bathroom.
Maybe I really missed out on something. Maybe there’s a bit of Grease and the Wonder Years still lingering in high school campuses despite the cynicism that modernity brings. A timeless awkward profundity immune to Silly Bands or BBM. Let homecoming anxiety remind us of a gentler age, when the little things were the biggest things, before we became the hairy, unsatisfied selves we are today. Then rip off that strip and get back to business — we’re not getting any younger.
No Happy Medium 