There’s been a lot of talk about dresses lately. And I’m not just talking about “the dress,” the blue and black (yes, blue and black) striped friendship-ruiner that’s been the talk of the internet for the past few days. I’m talking about the most important dress that you will ever buy, the dress that defines who you are as person and how successful you will be in life. And no, I’m not even talking about your wedding dress. The dress I am referring to, as any teenage girl will tell you, is your prom dress.

The talk about prom and the dresses that accompany it started around mid-September. That’s around the time that girls start looking at prom dresses online, trying to find “their” dress, the dress that will make other girls jealous on the most important night of their high school careers (graduation, apparently, takes second place to an inconsequential night spent dancing with a boy you most likely won’t be talking to in four months). Without at least six months of preparation, prom night and your entire high school experience will surely be a complete and total disaster. That’s why you must spend all of your free time googling “prom dresses” and looking through every website that shows up on the Google results.

As you look online for prom dresses, you’ll notice a few things. First of all, you’ll realize that prom dresses are expensive. Like, dig-into-your-college-fund and have-your-parents-remortgage-the house expensive. I mean, come on: $400 for a piece of fabric with fake jewels that you’ll wear once? Don’t you need that money for other things, like, I don’t know, college?

Once you get past the initial sticker shock, you’ll start to notice things about the models wearing the dresses. Every single prom dress model is tall and skinny, yet somehow has the curves to make a dress look amazing. The model’s hair is, of course, flawless, blown back by the slight breeze of a photo shoot fan. And, as a rule, no prom dress model is below the age of 20, because won’t you just look so grown up on prom night?

After about six months spent obsessively looking at pictures of tall skinny models in dresses online, it’s time to do some real-life prom dress shopping. Whether you decide to venture into the terrifying world of prom dress stores with your mom, grandmother, aunt, best friends, or any combination of the above, it’s important to keep one thing in mind: this is going to be one of the most stressful, infuriating experiences of your life.

It won’t start out that way: walking into a prom dress store for the first time is like throwing open the gates to a palace. Look at all of those dresses that I can try on and look like a princess in! Oh, my God, that one over there would look so good on me!

However, your excitement won’t last long, as you’ll soon find yourself digging through the racks and finding at least one thing wrong with every dress. It seems like every dress is too something: too frilly, too tight, too flowy, too sequiny, too plain, too ugly, too princessy, too ew, too bright, too dark, too… well, you get the idea. After a few minutes of nitpicking, you’ll most likely find a few dresses worth trying on. This is where the real fun begins.

Once you’ve finally zipped yourself into a dress and pinpointed the ten areas where it needs alterations, you’ll take that brave step out of your dressing room to show the dress to your waiting loved ones. After a minute of oohs and ahhs, the real feelings begin to come out. The “it’s nice, but…” statements that point out how a dress is too something (see aforementioned list) begin to spring forward, unsolicited, from the mouths of the people who you used to love. And if the people you’re with don’t find something wrong with the dress, you certainly will. It’s like “Say Yes to the Dress”, except instead of preparing to get married to the man of your dreams, you’re wondering who’s going to ask you to junior prom.

Once you’ve exhausted the decent-looking dress supply of whichever store you’ve decided to go to first, you’ll head off to your next location, your spirits only slightly dampened by your so-far unsuccessful search. However, your sunny disposition will certainly have faded by the fifth store you go through to. By the sixth and seventh stores you go to, the gate-throwing feeling you experienced in store #1 is gone, replaced by an overwhelming feeling of dread. Whereas before tall racks of dresses looked like the pillars to a palace, they now fill you with a mixture of anxiety of sadness (especially in stores that have no obvious organization. I’m looking at you, Formals XO).

After a search that includes no less than five stores, you will eventually find your perfect dress. When you do, a dove is released, an angelic choir sings, and your bank account (or your mom’s bank account) is significantly lower than it was earlier in the day. From here, the next step is posting a picture of your dress on the prom dress page that somebody has set up on Facebook for the stated purpose of making sure that, God forbid, no two girls wear the same dress. Never mind that you’ve never even heard of some of the people in the group. Never mind that the chances are slim to none that you’ll actually see the person with the same dress as you at prom. No, only one person can wear a certain dress, because every prom-goer is special and unique. Besides, everybody knows that the real purpose of these Facebook pages is so that groups of friends can sit around and judge other girls’ dresses without having to wait until prom night.

Despite the stressful prom dress shopping experience, there’s something fun about knowing that, for at least one night, you’re going to look beautiful and have a great time with your friends.

Now, time to worry about your dress alterations/hair/nails/shoes/date/transportation/pre-prom pictures location/group of people you’re going with/flowers/post-prom plans.