I, 18F am a senior in high school, and our prom is 2 weeks away. I had a date, and since we don’t go to the same school, was planning to meet with him (with our moms) to plan for prom.
Here’s the issue. Today, a guy I’ve been friends with walked into my classroom and invited me to go to prom with him, and I was very hesitant and uncomfortable. I looked around and saw everyone recording me (his friends were piled out of the room) and everyone looking to see if I said yes. My teacher was also mad because we’d interrupted his class. So, to save face- I told him “yes”. Once all the cheering and stuff was over and he was about to leave, I went out to talk to him and tell him that I already had a date. I thanked him and everything, but told him no.
I told my prom date what happened (honestly because he deserved to know and I didnt realize he’d be upset, mainly because he knows i wouldn’t embarrass someone like that), but he’s pissed. I get him though, I just feel like I tried doing the best I could with what I could in that situation. He’s cancelling on me. I’m so sad and I feel so bad, and now I wish I would’ve just said no. I didn’t think anything about it, I just knew I was embarrassed and didn’t wanna get him clowned on by his friends. Rejection is one thing privately, but public? Yikes.
Guys, I don’t know what to do. My date’s so upset and I really like him. I’ve apologized so many times.
So, AITA for not rejecting a guy who asked me to prom to save face?
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I, 18F am a senior in high school, and our prom is 2 weeks away. I had a date, and since we don’t go to the same school, was planning to meet with him (with our moms) to plan for prom.
Here’s the issue. Today, a guy I’ve been friends with walked into my classroom and invited me to go to prom with him, and I was very hesitant and uncomfortable. I looked around and saw everyone recording me (his friends were piled out of the room) and everyone looking to see if I said yes. My teacher was also mad because we’d interrupted his class. So, to save face- I told him “yes”. Once all the cheering and stuff was over and he was about to leave, I went out to talk to him and tell him that I already had a date. I thanked him and everything, but told him no.
I told my prom date what happened (honestly because he deserved to know and I didnt realize he’d be upset, mainly because he knows i wouldn’t embarrass someone like that), but he’s pissed. I get him though, I just feel like I tried doing the best I could with what I could in that situation. He’s cancelling on me. I’m so sad and I feel so bad, and now I wish I would’ve just said no. I didn’t think anything about it, I just knew I was embarrassed and didn’t wanna get him clowned on by his friends. Rejection is one thing privately, but public? Yikes.
Guys, I don’t know what to do. My date’s so upset and I really like him. I’ve apologized so many times.
So, AITA for not rejecting a guy who asked me to prom to save face?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Telling him and not saying no at first.
I embarrassed my date and didn’t think about how it might affect him later on. Either way he would’ve found out, but I wish I’d have just said no.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
>but he’s pissed… He’s cancelling on me.
Wait, so you were honest with your BF(?) and he was so mad you didn’t publicly embarrass someone who put in a ton of effort to ask you to prom and had people recording it, that he’s refusing to take you? That’s super lame and honestly a massive red flag for me.
NTA for not rejecting your friend in front of everyone. He put you on the spot in a major way. I do suspect he has bigger feelings for you than you might think.
NAH. You didn’t ask to be thrust in the situation of having someone prom-pose to you with all their friends recording it, and you reacted out of a genuine desire to protect a human being from humiliation in the moment. If someone had given you a heads-up that he was planning to do this, you might have been able to head him off before he put himself in the position to be rejected publicly. But you were surprised, you reacted in the moment, and you explained your actual position as soon as you could afterwards.
Your date also is NTA though, it’s reasonable for him to feel upset that there are now videos of the person he was planning to go to prom with saying yes to someone else. If the way he’s receiving this is that you embarrassed him to protect someone else from being embarrassed, that’s a reasonable way for him to perceive it even though it wasn’t your intention.
And the other guy who did the promposal is NTA, he’s just a teenager doing what he’s been told he’s supposed to do to get the attention of someone he likes. Clearly his friends hyped him up and didn’t give him good advice about how to figure out if you like him back before doing this.
The only “AH” here is the entire promposal culture creating pressure on teenagers to go through these elaborate public rituals when you’re not even old enough to have learned how to express sincere feelings for each other and handle a rejection with grace.
I’m hesitant to call you an AH, (NAH) but I think this was predictable. Your prospective date’s friends now have a recording of you accepting (which possibly will be or even already was posted to SM), so when you show up with someone else it could look like your actual date vultured in. By saving your friend some embarrassment, you have risked causing social problems for your date.
Not wanting to embarrass the guy doesn’t really make sense because he’ll just have to explain later about the rejection anyway. (Or not explain and cause embarrassment for your date.)
I don’t think it’s great that your date won’t overlook this, but I get how it could be upsetting.
NTA, although I think you were still wrong. A-holery is doing something with no consideration for how it will affect people, and it’s hard to apply it to someone who was trying to protect someone’s feelings. It’s not like you let the promposal-er think you were going to be his date for a day or even an afternoon. You erred on the side of not letting people dunk on him and immediately let him know.
I get why your actual date is a bit upset, but he is overreacting. It’s not hard to understand why, but’s certainly immature. You made a snap decision not to hurt someone publicly, did it privately immediately, and the situation has no bearing on your prom date at all. Is he worried about people asking questions about it? Is he worried that his asking you to prom was smaller/less impressive? Is he worried about competition?
That last part is probably where he is. He imagines that you would have said yes here if you weren’t already going with him, or wanted to say yes, and only corrected it after feeling guilty about it. It’s not strange for a man, especially a young man, to confuse a kindness to someone else as a potential attack on him, but that’s a systemic issue, and not your problem. Talk to him if he’ll let you, explain yourself, and leave it to him to figure it out.
NTA. There is absolutely nothing about you being a kind person that should cause embarrassment to your previous date. He could have just laughed it off with a joke, “I knew I had the best date, everyone wants her!” And acknowledged your attempt to help the other kid save face in the moment as kindness. Obviously it’ll get out eventually when you uh, don’t show up to prom with him. And by then no one will care.
Huge red flag of possessive and controlling relationship behavior. Consider him backing out as you dodging a bullet.
Both the guys in this story are giant AHs. You’re NTA. Everyone would’ve called you heartless and spoke ill of you if you had publicly declined. He should have never asked you publicly. Completely inappropriate behavior. Your initial date also massively failed the vibe check. You told him what happened. If nothing else, you protected yourself and your reputation. As you should have. I know this hurts right now. I’m so sorry. Can you go with some gal pals in a group? That’ll be way more fun than a date anyway
NTA – (I’m not American) I generally think public promposals are weird if you don’t know they’re 100% going to say yes (like when the people are dating/together), putting someone on the spot like that isn’t cool, I’d hate it. You either come off as the asshole for saying no and embarrassing the guy in front of everyone or you’re nice and accept to go prom with someone you don’t want to go with just for the sake of being nice.
Your other prom partner being angry… I get it cause you guys are young and he was probably a little jealous
NTA. This is a catch 22 situation. There was no right way for you to it, people wouldve dogged on you either way. You have now seen the true colours of your friend though. I would call him immature but… He kind of is by definition so that might not be fair.
For future reference: yes there is no way for you to get out of a public proposal without people hating on you. But its still always better to just reject upfront. Let the other party be embarrassed. Or just say “kets discuss in private”
Wait what does your date have to be pissed about?
I hope this teaches you a good lesson about peer pressure, don’t say yes to something you don’t want to do just because people are watching you.
NTA, you’re young and proposing like that in public isn’t something you’re used to handling. The teacher is kind of an AH for not shutting it down right away too, that kind of thing would have gotten you in school suspension quickly when I was in high school.
Soft YTA. You need to go rewatch Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire to see how to handle it. You are honest and say “I already have a date” there is no embarrassment in that.
ESH. Promposals suck for exactly this kind of situation, but you still should have said no right away. You didn’t “save face” at all.
NTA but the other two guys are.
Your date for bailing on you–sure you said “yes” but then backed out almost immediately and never actually intended on going with this guy. Seems he was just looking for an excuse to bail.
Then the guy who asked you. If you are friends as you say, wouldn’t he know you already had a date? Idk it’s been a while since I was in those shoes but I feel like the guys almost always put feelers out before actually asking girls to dances. Like no one would ever be asking someone who already had a date or was likely to say no.
I really don’t think you did anything wrong. You didn’t let things go on, you were publicly bombarded and didn’t want to humiliate your friend. I think most 18 year old girls would have done exactly the same thing you did.
You are NTA
Stop apologising or feeling embarrassed.
Let your date know that you would like to know if he is still your date as you are excited to go with him. If he says anything other than yes just end the conversation. More fool him.
If people ask what happened just repeat a stock phrase like, I was a bit overwhelmed but I’m glad I spoke to X and y afterwards to explain….and I can’t discuss it further. It won’t last more than a day if you don’t elaborate or look fazed
Don’t let yourself be defined by the behaviour of others – that’s your date and the person who mugged you for a date.
Remember that you are awesome otherwise you wouldn’t have one boy sulking and another boy desperate for a date.
NTA at all.
I really hate the concept of promposals UNLESS it’s an established couple where you already have a pretty good idea that the invitation will be welcome.
Putting someone in that situation where everyone is filming on their phones and the whole class, or a whole cafeteria is staring and there’s a big elaborate scene… puts a lot of pressure on them to say yes when they may not want to. It can backfire badly like in cases like yours. There have been other cases where a parent of a special needs student encourages them to ask their crush out in a big elaborate promposal and then when the person they ask doesn’t return their feelings and lets them down gently, they are dragged on social media for being cruel… when they really weren’t. No one should be pressured to accept a date they don’t want to go on just because someone asks, or asks in an elaborate way, and that that’s not what we need to be teaching young people, especially young women. And that’s why I really don’t like the promposal concept outside of silly rom coms or established relationships.
So I don’t think you did the wrong thing at all because you were put on the spot. You tried to let that guy down gently and not humiliate him. That came from a kind, good hearted place. You were trying to be a good, decent human. If the guy who was going to take you to prom can’t understand that, that you were put in a terrible position, tried to do the gentlest thing, then immediately told him, no, you were already going with someone, then he’s not worthy to take you to prom (much as I know that hurts.)
You’re NTA. You were trying to be nice and you were in a tricky situation. Your OG date has nothing to be salty about but if he’s going to cancel I’d tell him “okay I’m go tell my classmate I’m actually free to go then” and go get that promposal date back. Either that or he’ll backpedal real quick and it can be over. He can quit his pouting.
“Hey, thank you! I would but I already got asked and said yes.”
Honesty is almost always the correct answer.
NTA as other have said.
this is not your fault. mainly it’s a cultural issue (public promposal are violent and should not be considered socially acceptable).
you might want to attempt to fix this:
there are 4 parties in this story: you, your date, the promposer and the social media public. you managed the first three correctly enough, but not the public.
you should post publicly telling your side of the story, with the effect of clarifying who was you wanted to go to prom with and who wasn’t, and why you initially said yes.
what I would do is:
“X had proposed me privately and I had accepted privately. I didn’t feel the need to involve everyone else in our choice at this point, nor did him.
then also Y, unaware of this, proposed publicly.
I was so embarrassed and also I didn’t want to embarrass him publicly, so I initially said yes, and right away I told him in private that I already had plans. I might have done better, but this was what I was able to do under pressure.
as a result, all three of us are now without a date and disappointed. everybody lost something here, and its sad.
after this experience I don’t think a public proposal should be considered acceptable. everybody should be able to decide whether to accept a proposal without pressure, and anyone who proposes should be ready to accept a no.”
DO NOT ask X to reconsider in a public post, but you might do it privately if you still wish to go to prom with him. or you might get some other proposal, and so also X and Y.
NTA you were put on the spot and did this other kid a kindness by rejecting him privately. I can understand your date not being thrilled by what happened, but cancelling on you when you did nothing wrong is really kind of lousy of him.
Sounds like ‘trying to save face’ led you into an even more embarassing situation. YTA
NTA. You were kind to save the guy who asked in public from embarrassment. Your date did not appreciate your kind nature. Keep being you.
When our son was planning for his prom, we were surprised to find out he hadn’t invited anyone to be his date. He was going stag, he informed us.
And when hubby & I tried to tell him that he might find it a little awkward, he said, and I quote, “Oh, I’ve already got dances lined up with five girls!” A week or so after prom, one of his teachers sent us a photo of him surrounded by five girls. (Surprise: they were not the same five girls with whom he had already lined up those dances.)
My son and his friends (many others of whom had also gone stag) had a lot of fun going to prom as a group. I think rigid pairing off into couples has a way of interfering with just enjoying oneself.
That being said, play dirty. Tell the moms that he’s cancelling. Let them squeeze his couilles.
YTA. A shit situation for you all around but honesty is the best policy. A tactful rejection would’ve been better.
The only AH is the guy who asked you out in public like that when you already have a date… and you for accepting it, I’m not surprised that your bf cancelled.
NTA. Boys being inconsiderate all around you.
NTA. Sorry you’re going through this. High school is ROUGH, but it’s not forever. It does get better.
NTA. You had about two seconds to decide what to do and you made the best choice you could at the time. Your date is stupid to be mad at you. Promposals shouldn’t happen unless the person asking knows what the answer is going to be 100%. I think you made the right choice given you were totally blindsided by this.
NTA. Tell your friend to never EVER put you in that level of pressure ever again. That was unacceptable. Don’t go with that friend. Talk to your prom date. I think it’s pretty reasonable to be upset, but make sure they know that you only said yes because you felt pressured. I personally would cut that friend off, but you come to your own conclusion.