By John Joy ’18, Contributor
How to ask someone to homecoming: So simple John Joy could do it.
Preface: There could not have been a worse person to write this article, and I can only assume that the editors meant to choose a different John.
1. The Stereotype: You asked your mom for advice on how to ask, and because she does not want to waste her time trying to help you, this is what you get.
Step 1: Claim to spend hours slaving over a stove baking something exotic, when you really just paid your sister five dollars to make some cookies and then you covered them with a ton of frosting. Step 2: Attempt to write homecoming on the cookies and then run out of space because you suck at self-control and planning. Step 3: Admit defeat and hope your date has a lot of imagination. Step 4: This is where it gets tricky: Do NOT put your offerings to the gods of high school romance in some Tupperware container you found in a random cabinet. Get something with a hinge; it is hard not look smooth when you have a hinge, and it looks like you did not put this whole scheme together on a Tuesday at 3 a.m. Step 5: Awkwardly give your potential date whatever monstrosity you ended up making during a time that is somehow bad for both of you and hope she is not gluten-free. Step 6: Wonder how on earth that worked.
2. The Nerd: Nerds socialize too… right? I am not here to answer that question, but I can help you solve it and then regret doing so immensely when they spend ten minutes explaining relativity to you.
Step 1: Classify your nerd; is it an average treckie, or is it your advanced “I can probably blow up your head with math” type of nerd? Avoid computer nerds though; they will spend the entire dance complaining about how the audio sucks, and how everybody who owns an Apple product is “literally Hitler.” Step 2: After you have found out what species of nerd you are dealing with, invest yourself in their culture for 10 minutes. After that, it is just a matter of finding some fanfiction and poorly replacing some names. Step 3: Inevitably mix up your nerds and subject yourself to a verbal beating about how Star Treck is a cheap Star Wars knockoff, but somehow, you don’t get rejected.
3. The Overachiever: For those who do not want to just woo their date, but also everybody in a 10-mile radius of them.
Step 1: Get some friends to back you up, as you are going to need them later. Step 2: Find out the locker number of your date, and because nobody locks their lockers, you leave a semi-creepy hint leading them to some classroom. Step 3: Have your friends leave progressively more obvious hints in their classes, eventually leading them to your location. Step 4: Have some sign with a final puzzle that eventually spells out homecoming written on it waiting for your date. Step 5: Confuse your date with the wrong puzzle and explain what you meant it to be. Step 6: Drown in your own ego after pulling off such an elaborate heist.
4. The John Joy: Just like the man, the myth, the legend himself, this is something so pointlessly over-complicated that something’s bound to go wrong.
Step 1: Think of some really over-elaborate strategy to ask someone. Step 2: Waste all the time you were going to spend working on such a pointlessly over-elaborate plan writing an article about how to ask somebody to a dance. Step 3: Get sick the day you are supposed to ask. Step 4: Spend all night on Netflix wondering why you even wanted to leave your basement and ask somebody anyways.
