While students often associate prom season with stress, many expect such emotions to permeate solely within the girls. These past three months swirled with prom-craze, as girls searched for perfect dresses and dates. But most people only acknowledge the girls’ anxiety and disregard the guys’ nerves.

If I asked anyone who possessed more nerves regarding prom, many would immediately answer with “girls.” But for some, this does not hold true.

“It’s your last year and you have to do everything right. You have to look nice and impress your date and know how to dance and there’s a lot of pressure for not messing up,” senior Kingsley Emenike said.

Society expects boys to maintain a macho exterior, which proves an unfair judgment against them. Guys can become equally as nervous as girls; their hidden feelings still exist. Based on society’s expectations, we expect men to remain calm or disinterested when it comes to dances and parties—anything “girly.” Such unfair generalizations, however, place immense pressure on boys.

Girls, picture this: imagine if we normally asked boys to prom. Imagine the crushing expectation of planning the perfect promposal society places. While girls wait anxiously to get asked, boys agonize over how to ask and whether she will say yes because she might say no?

“Boys are under pressure for doing everything perfectly, like a promposal. I have to make the promposal really good and unique, and she might not even say yes to me,” junior Alex Flack said.

Prom forges a double-edged sword of anxiety that strikes both boys and girls. Students must remember that boys are human. They feel emotions beyond anger and disdain, but since most hide away their other feelings, many do not notice. Prom intensifies the feelings for both girls and boys, even though the latter group often goes unnoticed.

Perhaps people mistake dismissal for apathy. For many guys, prom itself does not hold importance, but the pressure felt from dates can prove overwhelming.

“She expects so much, and it’s just the question of if I do something wrong,” junior Ben Jones said. “I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who ruined prom.”

Similar concerns plague most boys taking a girl to prom: What if he does not get the correct corsage? What if he does not properly match? Does he need to buy her ticket? Rent a limo? What should he expect? What does she expect? Endless questions plague many boys taking a girl to prom.

For all the girls who complain about prom stress, their complaints place even more pressure on boys.