My date for the Alpha Chi Alpha spring formal my senior year ditched me for the Arctic Circle. Or so the story goes. What she actually said, when our paths crossed in the computer center one drizzly spring evening, was that a very close friend was heading to some particularly cold and snowbound locale for an extended period of time and that my formal happened to conflict with his farewell party. I tried to explain this to my AXA brethren later that evening. All they heard, however, was “dumped” and “snow” and they took it from there, enjoying many hearty laughs at my expense.

At the time I didn’t have the stomach to even wonder whether she was telling the truth. Either way, it was the final straw. I’d struggled for three and a half years to find my footing on Hanover’s rocky social landscape. Apparently all my efforts had been in vain. It was time to try my luck elsewhere—a realization that was sweeping across many aspects of my life.

What was particularly disappointing about this chain of events was that for the first time in my life I’d selected a date based not on how she’d look on my arm or my chances of getting lucky. I was under no illusions that this would lead to any kind of long-term relationship—in a few short weeks we’d all throw our mortarboards up in the air and scatter like dandelion seeds. I chose to ask her simply because she was someone with whom I thought I’d enjoy spending an evening.

A few weeks before I invited her to the formal we had found ourselves attending a concert in Boston with a few other friends. We’d been very casual acquaintances to that point in our Dartmouth careers, but at the concert I felt a spark. Not the sort of spark that would lead to a romance—not that I would’ve been opposed to that—but rather two people realizing they had more in common than they thought.

With that fire extinguished before it could catch, I contemplated boycotting the formal. If my best intentions were getting spit back in my face, then what was the point? When a fellow ’93, George Roumanis, decided to skip it as well, it sealed my decision. Flying solo at the frat house on the evening of my final college formal reeked of desperation. Doing so in tandem was something akin to a protest, even if we were lacking a coherent platform.

So while the rest of the fraternity put on blazers and ties, gathered dates and boarded rented school buses bound for a nearby banquet hall, we loaded an erstwhile bread rack with cups of tepid tap beer, carried it to the third floor, settled into couches and turned on the TV.

The movie of the evening on HBO was The Commitments, based on Roddy Doyle’s fictional account of the rise and fall of a youthful Irish soul band. Roumanis had never seen it. As it was one of my favorites, we tuned in.

The movie proved the perfect distraction. We both especially appreciated the soundtrack, a great collection of classic rhythm and blues and soul.

Roumanis and I spent the next six years on opposite coasts. But during our occasional AXA ’93 reunions we fondly remembered that movie and how it rescued us from a bleak evening of self-pity.

Not long after I returned to the East Coast in the summer of 1999 Roumanis called with an offer, tickets for the acoustic blues of Hot Tuna at the gilded Beacon Theater in New York City the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Sure, I said. Sounds great—and it did.

In the years since, live music, specifically blues-influenced classic rock and roll, has been the impetus for many mini-reunions: The Allman Brothers at the Beacon, the Dead at the Tweeter Center, the Radiators at Irving Plaza, Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam in Asheville, North Carolina. Last December I fulfilled a 22-year-old promise to myself when we took in AC/DC’s latest tour in Atlanta. I’d passed on my previous chance to see the Australian quintet because the concert was the night before I was to take the SATs. The fond memories of that aural blitzkrieg have long outlasted the temporary tinnitus.

We both have families now, and Roumanis has moved to the Southeast. It has become tougher to find concerts we can both attend. But I know that as long as the timing works—and the aging rockers we enjoy keep heading out on tour—we’ll see live music together for a long while to come.

At my 10- and 15-year reunions I ran into the woman who was to have been my date for that formal. Both times I considered asking her whether she was telling the truth when she begged off. Both times, curious as I was, I decided against it. At best, I’d look like someone unable to let go of the past—at worst, a potential stalker.

Should the subject come up at a future reunion I plan to simply smile. Maybe I’ll even thank her.

I realize now that I got exactly what I wanted.

Stuart Streuli lives in Newport, Rhode Island. He is senior editor of Sailing World in Middletown, Rhode Island.