I didn't go to my prom either. After "escaping" Catholic school starting in 6th grade, I loved Tome Street Elementary school in 6th grade and then Ridley Park Junior and Senior HS from 7th through 10th. It was small and friendly and relaxed and had a ton of older teachers and a few newer ones all of whom we're varying degrees of chill. Then we got sold out for school district reorganization and ended up at Ridley (township) HS. I disliked it thoroughly.
I went from a school with ~600 students in 6 grades to a school (if you can call it that) with 3,000 students in 3 grades. It had one way halls and you weren't allowed to go to your locker between classes all day long and ALL the bathrooms except the one near the front entrance were locked because the goombahs had literally demolished all the others. We had 22 minutes for lunch and you weren't allowed to leave the cafeteria and if you bought your lunch, after waiting in line you had about 5 minutes to eat it.
At Ridley Park we had 45 minutes for lunch and you could walk the 4-5 blocks to "the stores" and get what you wanted if you wanted to go that route. If you brought your lunch they opened the gym and opened the sound system and you could bring your favorite records (45 rpm singles) and the AV boyz would play them. The guys sat in the bleachers on one side and the girls sat in the bleachers on the other side. The girls would get out there and dance and the boys would watch. Every now and then we'd pool our nickels and dimes and bribe on of us to go out and dance with the girls. Good times!
Also, they made all the gym equipment available and you could go out and play some ball if you wanted, plus there was a lake across the street and you could go there and commune with nature if you wanted to.
We'd regularly have assemblies which featured paid presenters which would always go over the allotted time so our principal, Ollie, would come out on stage and figure out for us the truncated afternoon periods. At the big Ridley (Township) HS, in the two years I was there, we NEVER had even one assembly plus we didn't have ANY senor class trip. Nada, zero, zilch.
You were only supposed to be able to take 4 "advanced" (as if) classes but they let me take all of mine as such. They had a football team which never lost and got 10,000 to 15,000 spectators for the Thanksgiving team. We were absolutely HATED around the league for our boorish, even semi-violent behavior. I never attended one game.
The captain of the football team ran for student council president. He had been caught mooning traffic out the window of the team bus and was just another low grade goombah. Through my guidance counselor the administration asked me to run against him. I had ZERO chance of winning as this was halfway through my Junior (first) year there and I had the same ~30 folks in all my classes and didn't really know very many people. I did almost no campaigning as it was a hopeless Bataan death march and, of course, I lost BUT the admin told me it was the closest election they'd ever had. I still don't believe I would have won even if I'd campaigned, but there you go.
There was no chance I was going to that fucking prom. The joke was that ~ 30 pregnant girls and I were the non-attendants.
I've said all this before. Do I feel better now? No.