When spring rolls around the corner, there’s more to this beautiful season than just the blossoming of plants and the sun shining. Its prom season. Prom—the night to remember. Dressing to the nines with your best buds and spending time with your date of choice. The music, the lights, the pictures, and of course, the dancing. All of these things make prom night what people call, “the best night of your high school experience.” But what happens to the people who didn’t get asked? Does it suck as much as people say it does?

If you’re a girl who didn’t get asked, you are beautiful and worth it just the way you are. In spite of what you may think and what society is subtly trying to make you think, not going to prom has approximately a zero percent chance of affecting the rest of your life for good or bad. You still have great value. You are not worthless. You are not sub-standard. You are not broken. Whatever your social status is, please ignore it. However many friends you have right now, it doesn’t matter. Whether you’ve gone to no high school dances or a thousand of them, your worth is not affected either way. I ask you to please change your viewpoint concerning the relation between your social life and your worth as an individual. You need to seek a happiness that is detached from what other people think about you and even (dare I say it?) what you may think about yourself.

The same goes for you, boys. You have no obligation to ask anyone out to any dance. That doesn’t mean that you can just “hang out” and eat pizza and play Halo and never commit to anyone for the rest of your lives, but a silly high school dance is nothing in the eternal scheme of things. Maybe you want to ask a girl, but you’re afraid. Maybe you’re just too nervous. Maybe you’re not ready. Maybe you have absolutely no interest but feel pressure by society and culture. I ask you to cast all that aside; you’ll be just fine if you strive to embody virtue, chivalry, purity, kindness, dignity, and hard work for the next few years, even if you never, ever ask anyone to a dance or go out on any dates for the next few years. If you never, ever end up feeling comfortable dancing, guess what! Either the girl you marry will hate dancing, too, or you will both love each other anyway.

Prom is absolutely worthless when it comes right down to it. The original idea it comes from may have been innocent, but the world has twisted it. The world has turned it into a necessity for social success and personal happiness, and that is one of the biggest kinds of lies the world tells today. Prom is overrated.