That’s pretty much where I felt like I could have been this past Friday night — a middle school dance — except for the fact that alcohol could be purchased (because don’t think for a second that $12 gets you any free booze) and that it wasn’t in the cafeteria, but at the Pacific Athletic Club somewhere in Redwood City. I’m not saying that I didn’t have fun or that I regret going — it just felt like I had already been to this dance 10 years ago.

Why’s that? To me, the evening reeked of middle school mostly because the whole thing seemed pretty awkward. When I arrived around 10:30, the place was basically empty. The dance floor was deserted and there were only a few people mingling around the club, both indoors and out.

I know that it’s always encouraged to meet new people and make new friends, but at this point in my senior year, I wasn’t all too inspired to “stop and chat” (that’s coined by my hero, Larry David) with strangers gathered in their cliques of friends; it would just be too strange (“Where did you live freshman year? What are you majoring in?”), like a freshman conversation three years too late.

After wandering around for 15 minutes or so, I opted to sample the bar. A highlight of the evening: my Long Island Iced Tea cost a mere six dollars. That’s a good three dollars cheaper than it would be at most of our pub night venues. Kudos to someone on that.

Then I attempted to be cool as I walked around sipping my drink, searching for people that might recognize me. By 11, people that actually knew my name had finally filed in, so I spent most of the following hour catching up and “stopping and chatting”.

This actually was fun — sometimes we forget about our long lost friends that have either moved to West Campus or are too busy staffing a frosh dorm or writing a thesis to visit us during daytime hours.

Around midnight, when I was both sufficiently buzzed from my Long Island and talked out, some of my friends and I decided to hit the dance floor. Back to the middle school comparison, what was going on with the music? Yes, there were the current Billboard Hits (i.e. Justin, Fergie, other songs I can’t identify but know are popular, etc.) to remind us that we are in fact living in the year 2007, but then there was also Sir Mix-a-Lot and the Tag Team.

Are “Baby Got Back” and “Whoomp There It Is” seriously the best musical relics of our childhood that they could manage to drum up? In my opinion, you shouldn’t do a throwback half-heartedly. If that’s the way you’re going to go, at least play some *NSync!

And speaking of throwbacks, the DJ had to end the thing with the dreaded ‘slow dance.’ Just like in middle school, when those with dates happily paired off, and the stag seniors like me were left awkwardly standing in the middle of the dance floor. I mean, there wasn’t even fair warning so that I could have slyly escaped to the bathroom or something...Ten seconds earlier they had been playing “Whoomp There it Is,” for Pete’s sake!

So, after a quick fruitless scan of the dance floor, I determined that my social dance skills would not be put to the test that evening. I then walked off of the dance floor with my head ducked in shame, and waited in the lobby with the other dateless folk. Soon after, my friends and their dates reappeared, and we all went home.

To clarify, I didn’t dislike the evening. I would have regretted not going — after all this was likely my penultimate prom-style dance in life (no grad school formals for me and weddings *shudder* are somehow of a different class).

I got dressed up, saw some old friends, took some pretty pictures, had a little bit to drink and even managed to more or less avoid the rain (5Sure are my heroes). Besides, middle school may have been awkward but it was fun enough (for me at least; rumor has it that it was downright depressing for some), so why complain?

Perhaps the take-home message is that prom-style dances will be a little bit awkward no matter how old we get — so just embrace them. Also, Sir Mix-a-Lot creates music that transcends the ages.

So, class officers, make sure that you get a larger venue with more tickets for the Senior Formal (there were only 400 for this event for a class of around 1600, which left quite a few people that wanted tickets without them), as it would be just tragic if anybody missed another night of pleasant awkwardness come spring quarter.