Fake Prom, Real World

Last Friday Steph, @ccath, @bondean and I headed down to the Palais Royale on Lakeshore West for Fake Prom 2009. The “theme” was Film Noir, and while many people kinda’ butchered it according to the purists it was definitely enjoyable after a long week of work to get dolled up, look around a fancy room and see plenty of guys and dolls in vintage (looking) attire and hair styles.

Random guests I asked to look candid for me at Fake Prom 2009

There wasn’t much to do at the event besides wait in line for drink tickets and drinks, followed by drinking those drinks, dancing and popping the prom balloons. Luckily for us we snagged a table close to the door where we could just sit and watch people coming in, and then check them out as they waited in the line ups. The vibe was a rare mixture of pretentious and completely easy going. The music was amazing with a great selection of hits from all decades. Every song made me want to cheer, although I was pretty drunk so don’t take my word for it.

@stephgoulet and I ham it up for the camera at Fake Prom 2009

I was having a great time flirting excessively with the bartenders and telling random people how great they looked while Steph chatted at the table with our lady friends. I must send a thanks to the girl that stopped to tell me I was beautiful and the red suit guy for telling me I looked fabulous. As well as apologies to the suspenders guy for my drunken insistence that he looked like Sterling Cooper, the fictitious ad agency – not even a person, Samantha!  And it’s not that it wasn’t fun enough to admire – and critique – fashions all night but the universe decided that we needed a little more drama to make the evening complete.

This drama came in a few entertaining forms. The first being the arrival of … the Kids. There they were, no more than 10 feet away from us in line to get drink tickets with some of their friends. The line was moving so slowly that it felt they were beside us forever and even when they got out of it and grabbed their drinks, they still ended up standing behind us pretty much the ENTIRE NIGHT. I suppose it’s always strange to see an ex when you’re single, but when it’s your ex and your partner’s ex all at once … it’s well … it’s weird! I’d had a bit of an appetizer to the situation the week or so prior when I saw S at a restaurant, but it didn’t make it any less bizarre to see him at Fake Prom.

It’s one thing to see an ex that you’re still civil with but after his last email to me I cut S right out of my life in every social media accessible form. There wasn’t really going to be any pleasantries on either side – although later when I was really drunk I did think about saying hello. When we were leaving, Steph was accosted by the girl half of the Kids and she and I were forced to exchange very uncomfortable, drunken “Hey, how are you’s?” before I had to cut their conversation off to go and grab our taxi.

In addition to the Kids, we ran into Steph’s ex (now good friend) B. That was nice but I hadn’t seen her in almost a year so it was a bit strange. Mainly because I suddenly realized at that moment how many people no more than 15 ft. from me I had been naked with at one point or another in my life! My brain drunkenly imploded at that very moment. Or was that Steph popping a prom balloon? I’ll never know for sure …

To top it all off, in the middle of a drunken serenade to @bondean of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, I ran right into a boy from okCupid who had also messaged me on Facebook. Over a year ago. And I remembered his name. (We are now FB friends as a result.) How random is that!

Around 2 am, we got soaked in the pouring rain waiting for a cab, finally made it home and then had a drunken fight until around 4 am. We actually learned a lot of stuff from that fight so I’ll share it with you soon.

My final verdict on Fake Prom? A lot more fun than I was expecting it to be, accompanied with a heaping of awkward drama to keep us on our toes.