Us here have usually only one dance in High School. It's when 3rd graders go to reading holidays for their graduation tests and 2nd graders are oldest in the house, so there are the dances for 2nd graders.
Allright, to the point.
I was asked by two girls.
First was over a month before first practices and I was like "I haven't even thought about it myself yet, so I don't know really" I was pollite and neutral and I don't think she took that personally.
You get now a great example what happens if you wait too long and do nothing: There was few girls (hotties ofcourse) I was interested to go with, BUT because I had waited too long I found out that they ofcourse had gotten a dance partner already!
About the second asker:
(I had heard half year before that this second one is going to ask me. She's good looking about 8, BUT she is soooo stupid and acts like diva. And she has a bad rep for that. So I didn't want to go dance with her.)
Then I was in point that if you didn't had a pair, you got to choose someone and then this girl showed up and asked me "Do you have a dance partner?" I looked at her blue eyes and said completely neutrally and calmly "I don't know". She panicked a bit (as I looked her body language, not just a bit
) and asked from both me, and her couple of times "what do you mean you don't know???" I didn't answer and suddenly she rushed to a other guy (propably his friend).
After this whole thing I looked the sad looking bunch of people who didn't have a partner yet. Boys hanged in another corner girls in the other. I wanted to laugh. I wen't to that bunch of girls (no hotties included which are only girls I really like to dance with) and asked playfully "Who of you girls don't have a dance partner yet?". The whole bunch (about 25 girls) started yelling "Take me, take me" and reaching hand to me.
I saw one of my friends there and took her
Okay I told a little story here which didn't have a point of anykind.
Just say "No" or "There's someone else I have though.". Say it in friendly way if you 'don't want to hurt her feelings'.
BTW. What's wrong if some girls think that you are a 'bad guy' it's better than 'nice guy'