How to Ask Someone to a Dance using a Goldfish

 So you want to ask this really important girl (or guy) to a dance, but you don’t know exactly how to ask. You want it to be creative and unique, but at the same time not time consuming or expensive. Here is an excellent idea to ask ANYONE to a dance.

Getting Ready-- Since I had a month or so before Prom, I planned a cool date before hand, so that asking was like a two part step. If you don't have time, or just want to get straight to asking, just skip on down!

In More Detail-- Since Prom for me happened to be in March (Prom is usually sometime in the spring); I started planning on Valentine’s Day. I took her to the pet store and told her we were going to buy some fish for each other (It sounds weird I know, but I needed an excuse to go to the pet store). At the pet store, I simply told her there were not any fish that I liked, and so we just bought two bowls and I told her we would return for the fish at a later date.

We took the bowls home and then I suddenly told her I had a better way to use the fishbowls (This was planned all along, however). Then, since it was Valentine’s day (but you can do this for any occasion really), we ripped up little pieces of paper and wrote things we liked about each other. Then, you guessed it, but them in the fishbowls. So at the end of this fun activity we both had a fish bowl with a bunch of little pieces of paper saying what the other person liked about us.

So I bet you’re starting to get some ideas about how this fun date activity can turn into a request for her to accompany you to prom. Well, doing some research online proved long and unfruitful. The ideas seemed too simplistic and plain cheesy (and not in a good way). Well I saw one idea I sort of liked, and this idea suggested giving him/her a fish, and a short poem saying “Of all the fish in the sea, would you be the one to go to prom with me?” This idea sounds pretty good with some simple alteration. I decided to write my own poem. This is pretty easy with a rhyming dictionary (In fact, it was so good my friend was convinced I had found it online, and he spent hours searching for where I got it). I have posted links to it a little farther down.

Using the poem I had written, I went to the local pet store and got some fish supplies. Fish, and especially goldfish, can be bought relatively inexpensive. Just make sure to get some food and rocks, and maybe a plant for your new fish habitat. Then with the fish and the poem, you guessed it, I put the fish in her decorated bowl while she was away. So when she got home, she saw the fish in the bowl, read the poem, and of course could not say no.

The link to the original poem I wrote, feel free to alter it, or reuse it. :D (It’s at the bottom of the page)

Some hints and suggestions: Use paint that won’t wash off of the fish bowl. My paint wasn’t very waterproof and I had to get a second fishbowl (but it still worked great for the asking! Just a little hard to change the water unless you’re really careful..)

Print off a page or two about how to take care of the fish that you bought. There’s nothing worse than you asking her to prom with fish that die before she can even answer you.

Personalize the poem. Include her name somewhere in it (If it rhymes with anything). Also, I found that adding a little clip art to the poem makes it look a lot better. You can format the text too, I think it looks better centered.

OH, Those Fish from the sea.

WELL Everyone will say “there's a million fish in the sea.”

And that same everyone knows that 1.3 billion are Chinese.

So if you do the math, then I think, you will no longer disagree,

There are One thousand people exactly like any fish from the sea.

So I had to find a fish—of which there was only one.

A task that proved overwhelming from the second I begun.

This was no easy task, it was trying and baffling for me;

To discover a fish—shimmering brilliant—among all the debris.

What fish is matchless? Paramount? Unsurpassed?

That is the key criterion. For that one fish which will last.

Not one that’s too big, bright green, or too fast.

Just one that’s all funny. Real cute. A blast!

I want to find one that’s different (from all the rest).

That in itself is quite an… unfathomable quest.

So where should I begin to look for a fish like that?

Over in Europe, some big lake, or in a magicians hat?

I want a fish that canswimfast… and swim slow

One that can S mile J and chu ck le and glow.

A fish that is nice. And awesome! And sweet.

One fish that makes me feel so very complete.

This fish will be grade A,

Top notch,

And above the rest.

This is enough to make any super-swimmer stress.

Alas, after many long days of scouting the sea,

I think I have found the right fish for me

She meets all my specifications, and goes a mile above

She makes me so happy. I even fell in love.

This fish is a keeper no doubt,

This is one fish

I cannot be without.

Without further ado I would say,

Let’s go have fun.

And frolic.

And play.

So when I suggest—I hope you agree

Will you please,

Be the fish,

That goes to prom with me?