The $600 Prom

According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the average 17-year old attending their high school senior prom will spend $638. Regular readers of this blog probably expect that I’ll rant and rave against this shallow, self-indulgent waste of money, but guess what? I can't quite get my shorts in a knot over this one.

It's not that I have fond memories of my own prom...I never went to it way back in my graduation year of 1973. I would have been happy to skip the graduation ceremony too if my parents hadn't forced me to go...high school was a wretched period of my life. (My parents also insisted I buy my class ring--they paid--assuring me that once I entered the adult world I would look back on high school as a treasured memory and be glad I had that ring. Thirty years later, the whole 'treasured memory' thing still hasn't kicked in.)

I don’t have any great feelings towards prom-goers in general either. Every year around this time, limos clog the streets of my city, their windows dangling boisterous teens acting like 10-year-olds to celebrate their rite of passage into adulthood. Not a pleasant sight, no matter how daring the décolletage of the prom gown.

I do, however, have a soft spot for spending money on experiences rather than things. It is what has made me choose, despite the relatively low income I have earned my entire life, to travel as often as possible, trips that have ranged in length from one week to one year and that have taken me to 30 countries on five continents. It is why I find it so seductive to spend money on eating out, seeing a movie and going to a play or concert, but agonize over expenses for household items. It is why I can be miserly when it comes to buying clothes but fairly free-spending when it comes to buying good food with which to prepare our meals.

Experiences are freeing, events that expand your mind and weave your memories into something seemingly larger than any individual life. Experiences are connections to other people, to the world in which we live, to our souls. An experience lasts for as long as our memories do and can always be carried with you without needing to be packed. Our memories of our experiences can be put to many uses, and even years down the line can still thrill us.

As for things…well, yes, things are necessary and certainly can contribute to the pleasure of one’s life, and yet they can also weigh you down. Most things don’t last as long as memories. Things have to be cleaned, fixed, packed, moved. Things can be stolen, broken, tripped over. A thing usually serves a single static purpose. We tend to become so used to the objects in our lives that we even stop seeing them.

While a prom is not the sort of experience that matters to me, I know that for many people it is a treasured memory. The thrill of spending too much on that gown or tux, and yet knowing that you are going to look fabulous, feel like you are starring in some romantic evening. Those mental pictures you have of yourself stepping out of that limo or twirling on the dance floor will warm you for years to come. $638 per person—that’s $1276 per couple—is utterly outrageous. But isn’t that part of the thrill of the experience? It’s not likely that most of us will often have the opportunity to blow that kind of money on a single evening of pleasure. Go for it.