Embarrassingly awesome, and also true.

On Saturday night, for the first time in my life I experienced the existential awkwardness of a high school dance - at the age of 21.

Although homeschool groups in OKC often gather together to have formal events (usually dances if you're nondenominational, banquets if you're Baptist), I preferred to wear skinny jeans, listen to Death Cab for Cutie and be alone in high school.

I mean, I still wear skinny jeans and listen to Death Cab, but I'm less alone now?

I don't regret avoiding these events in high school, but as a white Anglo-Saxon formerly homeschooled college senior, I think I enjoyed watching Anadarko High School's Winter Ball more than most of the students enjoyed attending it. Very few of them actually danced, apart from the Cha Cha Slide and Thriller.
At one point, a huge crowd migrated from their vestigial positions along the walls to populate the dance floor, gathering around one central attraction.

"What's going on?" I asked one of my high school friends, who had invited Jaime and me to prove the existence of her super cool college buddies (ha).

"Oh, they're all watching the black girls dance," she said. C'est la vie.

One sophomore sidled up to us, introduced himself, and asked our age. When Jaime and I told him, he exclaimed, "Oh! I don't have a shot, then?"

Glittery Toms with tea-length purple dresses dominated the clothing scene, inspiring in my heart gladness that all my Toms have worn out and for once, maybe I actually rode the fad before it jumped the shark.

Notorious for teen pregnancies, Anadarko High nevertheless boldly charged ahead with sexualized songs to which one "can only dance like a slut," as one high school boy casually told me. Brave New World, and all of that, I guess.

Altogether, I feel privileged to have experienced and observed the social awkwardness that is a high school dance, and doubly privileged to have experienced it in Anadarko.