I blame Walt Disney.

He was the one who put that impossible fantasy into every girl’s head: to become a princess. (We dreamed of becoming astronauts and mermaids as well, but that’s for another column.) And normally, the first chance we get to live it out happens around this season for every generation of high school girls: PROM.

We’ve all imagined ourselves walking gracefully into the ballroom, turning heads, captivating strangers by our sheer beauty, hair-sprayed and made up and accented by a stunning flowing ballgown, and, ideally, in the arms of a handsome prince in a crisp suit. Some even throw in a limousine as a modern-day noble steed to boot. And if it happens to every teen girl in every movie in HBO, it really should happen to us. Right?

Well, not all of us live such charmed lives.

If you’re not from one of the more expensive high schools, you’re probably having it in the school gym, whose non-airconditioning is bad for your makeup, and whose uneven floors are unfriendly to stilettos.

If you’re from the more conservative coed schools, you’re probably not allowed to bring a date from outside, and there’s probably no half-desirable guy from your class, and the party probably ends at 11p.m., with no after-party.

If you’re part of your high school council, you’ve probably been tasked to host the event and you will spend the rest of the evening sitting on stage, awarding prom king and queen, while all your friends enjoy their dinner and each other’s company.

If your administrators are uptight spinsters with their hair in buns, they probably won’t play any love songs because slow music encourages student promiscuity.

And if you’re really, really unlucky, the strap of your dress is going to break off, and you are going to get your period on prom night. Better have an emergency kit handy.

Call me a cynic, but I’m really not exaggerating. That all happened to me, at my only prom ever. Ever.

But I honestly think there is good news here.

When you’re 16, and the only thing that matters is having a perfect evening at prom, and all of it goes terribly wrong, you either die or learn that it’s not the only thing that matters. That nobody is really paying attention to your bad hair and bad make-up, because everyone else is thinking about him/herself anyway; that not having a date now doesn’t mean you will die an old maid with nine cats (although I have yet to prove this hypothesis, but I am hoping to succeed); that when this night is over (at 11 p.m., with no after-party), it’s going to go down in history as a large part of high school, yes, but only that, and it’s not something that will define who you are in a couple of years, if you don’t let it. I had the worst prom ever, and I think I’m doing okay.

But, I have to admit, every now and then, I still wish I could go on another one, even if I’m almost too old for it. Every
girl wants to be a princess. Many of us eventually give up the dream, but few of us ever forget it. It’s just that our lives get cluttered with so many less romantic concerns — when we spend our evenings writing papers and studying for exams, when our cares for cute boys have been displaced by woes about getting a job.

Every now and then, though, I wake up after long nights of work, and my dad sends me a text: Good morning, princess.

And I think, for all intents and purposes, I feel like more of a princess than every prom queen ever has.

(The author is a third year Philosophy major at the University of the Philippines-Diliman)