We Went to the Same-Sex Formal

My own school formal was okay. Everyone was drunk for most of it. And despite what the movies promised there were no slow dances, romantic gestures, or climactic deflowerings. In fact, until I was forwarded a flier about Minus 18’s Same-Sex formal, I don’t think I’d given the night a second thought for almost a decade.

You always feel like these things should be so special and life changing, but for most kids they’re just another awkward let down. Like your first joint or boob squeeze. And as such, it never occurred to me that not having a formal is kind of a bummer. Sure to adults they’re a sweaty mess, but they’re a sweaty mess you have to go through, and not just as a token queer couple, as is the case for a lot of LGBT highschoolers. Feeling more sentimental about the whole formal thing, I called up my photographer buddy Heather and asked her one of life’s biggest questions: Will you go to the formal with me?

They were pretty insistent that the Same-Sex formal was a no alcohol zone, but I couldn’t reconcile the idea of 200 teens in full prom mode and none of them smuggling in a water bottle full of vodka. Surprisingly we arrived to a lobby was packed with clear eyed kids and soft drinks. Heather did mention that she heard someone puking in the girls toilets after dinner, but I’m not ready to blame it on booze. Every clear surface was covered in lollies. Smash enough sour worms with a stomach full of Fanta and you’d vomit too.

I feel like I should shout out everyone for being really well behaved. Does that make me old? Even the free photo booth was being used appropriately. There were no dick pics or anything. That might not sound like a huge deal, but if you’ve ever been 17 and near a photo booth you know that a lot of urges were curbed for the good of the crowd.

Resident cool girls Eleanor and Fatima

Despite being out of high school for eight years I kept expecting a swarm of cool kids to float by. It always felt impossible to have a crowd of under 18s in one place without a handful of queen bees arising from the mass to make everyone self conscious. I did notice one long legged, tight dressed, shiny hair babe skulking around in impossibly high heels. Her name was Eleanor, and when I asked why she came along she casually told me, “Because I’m transgender and bi-sexual, so I’m here representing the B and the T in LGBT.” She was also representing extremely pretty hair, which meant I immediately wanted to be her friend.

The cultural intricacies were a little different to what I navigated at my own formal. While trying to chill with Eleanor, her friends Mad and Emma walked up to us. They were also very tall with cool Tilda Swinton hairstyles. They mentioned being non-binary and I nodded and smiled while racking my sugar addled brain over the specifics of what that meant. Later I casually asked them if they were out at school and everyone just stared at me and repeated they were non-binary. Suddenly it was 2001 and I was the only girl in year eight who didn’t know what a hand job was.

We chatted a bit about going to an all girls school and I mentioned I felt their pain. Everyone kept saying “all girls” in air quotes and after a thousand years I remembered that non-binary meant not classifying yourself as male or female. I felt like my mum when she told me she knew what a blog was.

Eventually we were ushered into the main room to find our seats and collect our table presents of tote bags and condoms. Being in our late 20s we sat at an empty table alone, I couldn’t fight the urge to keep telling everyone who looked at us we were here for work. You haven’t felt like  a creep until you’ve been a 26 year old at a high school formal.

So far everything felt pretty familiar to my own experience at supervised dances, except that my date wasn’t telling me which of my friends they rated. Maybe the only difference was the entertainment. A few people selling CDs at the event sang songs about self acceptance, and a dumpy middle-aged male politician got up and talked about being yourself. That bit bummed me out. The star of the evening was comedian Josh Thomas, and when he came out, everyone lost their shit. Which made me wonder if this wasn’t an opportune moment to call it a night.

To be fair Thomas was a whole lot funnier off the clock in a room full of LGBT teenagers, he spent a few minutes making fucked up jokes and passing comments about how many 18-year-olds he was going to have sex with after the show. Condom balloons floated around throughout his set and it occurred to me how much he must have hated being on Talkin Bout My Generation.

Token beautiful lesbians

We walked around a bit more and got chatting to the most beautiful teenage lesbian couple I’ve ever seen. Fighting the urge to ask if they were models I asked how long they’d been dating and was met with awkward silence. No matter who you are, it’s still awkward if someone asks how long you’ve been dating if it’s under six months.

Minus 18 veteran Blake

Eventually we circled back to the cool table and talked to Blake one of the dewy skinned Minus 18 regulars. He told us he found out about the events by Googling “gay”. I was impressed by his parent’s Firewall that he found the Same-Sex formal. Like a lot of kids he was out to his family but not at school. He went to a Christian boys school where in a class debate about whether being gay was a choice a rival debater said it was to be “indie and alternative”. I felt doubly bad for him: not only for going to a school with close-minded kids, but also for knowing someone who still used the word indie.

When I asked if having things like this on the weekend made school better, he told me “Minus 18 has made me feel confident, it pretty much bloomed from there and I’ve been able to make friends not only through Minus but outside because my confidence is built up.”

We headed back to our table as the food came out, it all had vegan and gluten-free options. I guess that after you told your dad you like dudes, you apparently have no drama telling someone you don’t dig wheat. A lot of the teenagers were too busy making memories to sit down and as a result we had the rare chance to eat a whole plate of sliders and tacos each.

Funny junior lesbians Stella and Ashleigh 

After dinner they announced the event was sponsored by a well known ice cream company and rolled out an ice cream bar. While waiting in line for a thousand years as they handed out vegan brownies to everybody, we chatted to Stella and Ashleigh, arguably the cutest couple there. For obvious reasons they didn’t have a prom king and queen, but for the record I would have given it to them. I asked why they came out that night and Stella quipped, “We came out ages ago.” Later when I asked how long they’d been together she said, “Nine months, or as I like to tell people: a whole baby.” Even junior lesbians are funny.

Once the food was cleared away people started filling the dance floor. The crowd built up fast and it felt like proper for anyone who wasn’t trying to get a pair of underwear off to leave. Walking down the steps with “5 Seconds Of Summer” blaring behind me I realised that no matter who you are, or who you love, teenagers still have the worst taste in music.

Follow Wendy on Twitter: @WendyWends