Would anyone like to volunteer to come up on stage and play in this game?” I immediately glued my eyes to the floor and lowered my head. I most certainly did not want to go up on stage. Desperately hoping my front-row seat wouldn’t betray me, my stomach turned when the actress called out to me, “Oh yes, how about this shy girl in the front?” Tentatively looking around, I couldn’t figure out a way out of this one, so I begrudgingly made my way up to the stage.

But when I got on stage, there was no embarrassing game, no cringe-worthy attempt at audience participation. Instead, there was my good friend holding a bouquet of flowers and a giant poster reading “Don’t be in DeNILE. Wanna KILL it at Prom?” (I was at the theater to see his performance in “Murder on the Nile”).  My heart leaped. I was so excited I barely even read the poster and blurted out, “Yes!” We took pictures while everyone cheered and clapped, and I laughed at how well my friend had surprised me. Even though we had already agreed to attend prom together at an earlier time, having a promposal on stage was the cherry on top of a great prom experience for us.

Oftentimes, people will complain that promposals have become too ostentatious or place undue pressure on the person receiving the promposal. Although these criticisms have some validity, for the most part, these issues are not grave enough concerns to make the practice of promposing altogether intolerable. Furthermore, I too, was once one of these critics, but experiencing promposals for myself led me to realize how promposals can add a fun, lighthearted element to an oftentimes stressful high school experience. Of course, there will always be those who take certain ideas too far or make others uncomfortable, but these scenarios exist in life regardless of promposals. Should couples stop proposing to one another in public on the off chance the receiving party will dislike the proposal or decline? Of course not. So why can’t high schoolers ask each other to prom, a much more low-stakes endeavor, in the same way? The answer is high schoolers both can and should, if they so desire, enjoy promposing to one another. As the end of childhood approaches and teenagers prepare to begin their adult lives, it’s essential for teenagers to enjoy the remainder of their adolescence, and if promposals bring them joy, so be it.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Jessica Konrad at [email protected].