Aliisa Rantanen and Tony Costa attend last year's prom. Gargoyle photo by Linda Song (click to enlarge)

The official Prom '08 online invitation as designed by junior class president Isaac Chambers. Graphic courtesy Isaac Chambers (click to enlarge)

AS THE DEADLINE to RSVP for this year's prom creeps closer (April 25), many are anxious to find a date for the big night.

So how should you go about asking someone?

In my opinion, when it comes to prom, things should be done the “traditional” way. That means guys should do the asking, because chivalry is not dead.

So for all you single, eligible young men out there looking for a prom date, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to ask a girl to the big dance.

• Step 1: Make the right choice

Find the right girl for you. Your ideal prom date should be someone whom you feel comfortable with — someone you would like to take out to dinner, to dance with, and to hang out with during post-prom. She should be someone you regularly talk to, or at least someone you’ve had a few conversations with.

Never ask a girl you don’t know very well just because you think she’s hot. You might discover later that you guys have nothing to talk about, which will make for many awkward silences.

• Step 2: Just friends?

Think about whether you want to go to prom with this girl as friends or as more than just friends. This is an extremely important issue that you need to carefully consider because it sets the basis for how you will ask her out and how you will behave toward her at prom.

If you share a completely platonic friendship with this girl (and the feeling is mutual), then obviously you would want to ask her to prom “as friends.” Unfortunately, most of the time it’s not that simple.

Chances are, you want to ask a girl to prom because you have at least a little bit of romantic attraction toward her. This makes things a lot more complicated. If this attraction is not mutual, she might not want to go with you for fear of leading you on.

On the other hand, you should never lie and ask her to go “as friends” when you actually like her on more than a friendship level. If you lean in and try to kiss her on prom night, she would probably be very surprised, maybe even upset. Things between you two would undoubtedly become awkward after that.

• Step 3: Leave no room for misunderstanding

If you and this girl honestly share a platonic relationship, you should discuss this issue with her beforehand. Tell her that you are interested in going to prom with her as friends, and find out if she’s interested in going with someone else.

However, if you want to go to prom with her as more than just friends, the process becomes a bit trickier.

The first thing I would recommend is for you to find out if the girl has any interest in you. Don’t just go up to a girl and ask, “Do you wanna go to prom with me?” If she does, great. However, if she’s not interested, she would have the task of rejecting you.

Guys may think that girls have it so much easier because they’re not the ones who have to make the first move and possibly face the humiliation of rejection. However, I think girls have a tough job cut out for them, too. Girls feel bad about rejecting guys; often because of this, a girl will go to prom with a guy she doesn’t really even like that much just because she feels bad about saying “no.”

So before you ask a girl to prom as more than just friends, you should first gauge her interest in you. Many girls flirt with guys whom they simply consider their friends, so don’t think a girl is interested in you just because she acts like it.

The best way to gauge her interest is to ask someone (preferably a close friend of hers) to find out if she would be willing to go to prom with you. This is practically a fool-proof method: If you find out that she is interested, you can ask her to prom. If she’s not, at least you save yourself the awkwardness of rejection.

• Step 4: Be creative

Once you find a girl who’s interested in going with you, you have the task of finding a clever way to ask her out. Now, most guys simply go up to the girl and say something along the lines of, “Do you want to go to prom with me?”

There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want your date to feel extra special, you should devise a more creative way to ask her. You could give her a toy ring with a note attached in the case or you could give her a red rose (or a yellow carnation if you guys are going as friends) with a message wrapped around the stem.

Don’t ever ask her over the phone or on AIM. Technology is great and all, but it’s not the best thing to use when asking someone to prom.

So for all of you out there who are still looking for someone to go with, hurry up and take action! Don’t wait until the last minute to ask someone, because:

a) Chances are she’ll already be committed to go with someone else.
b) It seems insincere, and she’ll think that she’s your last option.

And if you’re a girl and you’re interested in asking a guy out, by all means go for it! All the above tips apply — except when asking him, you probably don’t want to give him flowers.