Westminster has a fetish, if you will, about our longstanding and upcoming, cute and quirky traditions. Typically, traditions are held up on a pedestal, never being questioned if they are truly in the community’s best interests. But when one surfaces as a concern, as the extravagant Christmas Banquet requests have, the vast majority cringes at the idea of breaking away. Before students become exasperated that this tradition will become annihilated, they should consider the reasons behind why it is being questioned.
In high school, underclassmen look up to the upperclassmen: watching the mistakes they make, the examples they set, and how they present themselves in certain situations. Year by year, CB invitations become more elaborate and the bar is set higher and higher for those who wish to ask in following years. Freshmen receive the unspoken message that this behavior is expected and obliviously continue the tradition.
The administration has received concerns from both parents and faculty that too much is expected from boys and the proposals need to be turned down a couple notches. Wanting to address these concerns, the faculty would like to touch upon the issue and ask that students consider whether excessiveness is necessary.
“We would like to emphasize that Christmas Banquet is a three hour event, not a marriage proposal. It is a one evening, simple social event,” said Susie Brown, Student Services administrator.
The motives behind asking a girl in a grand manner are less of wanting to impress her and more of wanting to fulfill her presumed high expectations so that the guy asking is not rejected due to lack of creativity. At Westminster, there is definitely pressure placed on boys. It could almost be seen as a competition among them on who can ask in a more creative way. After many sleepless nights and much time devoted to planning intricate CB proposals, the end result is merely a date for the evening. The benefit does not proportionally match up with the means taken to achieve it.
By lowering the tone of how guys ask girls, expectations will inevitably decrease. With expectations as high as they are now, girls set themselves up for disappointment. The focus of the event should not be about who asked whom and in what way, but of utilizing the opportunity to come together as a community in the manner of a formal event.
Another issue is the time, money, and effort guys put in, which could pressure the girl into saying yes. A girl may not want to go with the guy, but she would feel horrible to reject him after all the trouble he went to. Even if the girl does want to go with him, expenses still add up for guys with the pricey tickets, a tie and tux, a corsage, plus the costs of materials used to ask the girl.
Throughout the entire asking process, it is not unlikely that the girl would become embarrassed by the radical actions of her pursuer. I mean, is it truly necessary to spend more than twenty dollars solely on the process to ask her? Or to ask in front of a large crowd of about ten people or more? Even devoting more than an hour to brainstorm creative ways to ask and employing more than one other person to help seems unreasonably extreme. CB is more than how you asked your date.
“The purpose of the evening is for students to be together and enjoy some social time outside of the school day, while celebrating the Christmas season,” said Carla Meyer, Guidance Counselor.
Girls, stop expecting so much from high school boys. It is probable that you would be setting yourselves up for disappointment. Guys, do not blow this event out of proportion. Be considerate of the wishes of the administration and do not out-do yourselves. WCA community, encourage students to focus on the event and less on how to ask someone. Engage students in conversations about the purpose of CB and where to place their focus.
