Got my High School reunion invitation yesterday.

[ponch]

After all these years, the first question asked in the "lets get re-acquainted" section is: What kind of car do you drive now.

Wow, the memories are flooding back. Think I might be skipping it this decade.

[katiekilldare]

Oh my God! What a shallow question! How fabulous! Who do you suspect was in charge of the mail-outs?

Which reunion is this for you?

[pesch]

Oh go anyway. You can make fun of the ones you didn't like and sneak out early if it gets boring.

Did I go? Oh no! They wanted a hundred bucks for the banquet, and I didn't like my classmates that much!

[TVeblen]

Gee, ponch, they're making it really tough to pass up. Glad they went right for the essentials, by-passing fluff about married, kids, Nobel prize nominations, etc.

I treat reunion invitations quite seriously. They're my cue to rip them in shreds and go spluge on the best bottle of champagne I can afford, celebrating the fact I never EVER have to go back to those days.

Living well is the best revenge.

Veb

[Home of the Braves]

I have my 10 year reunion in September. I'm going to spend the almost $100/person. Why? Because I used to be somewhat of a bookish introvert, and I want those popular people to see that I came out of my shell and am doing very well for myself, thankyouverymuch.
I also have a score to settle with an exboyfriend.

So, anyone have any advice as to how to survive the reunion?

[katiekilldare]

I've got no tips, but I'll be happy to jot some down myself. My 10 year reunion is next year, and I already feeling weird about it.

[Lsura]

My 10-year is in August. I haven't decided if I am going or not-I only live 100 miles away, so I know I can make it. But technically I am a "lost alumnus". Even though they know where my brothers and parents are.


You know, it's hard to type with wet nails and not mess up the polish.

[hardygrrl]

I have never gone to a class reunion and never will.

Back in high school I was in the Honors program with a bunch of materlistic polo shirt wearing assclowns who drove me insane because I was a hardcore punk rock chick w/ a nose ring and a green streak in my hair. Apparently this was very shocking in small town Il in the late 80's.

Anyone who I was friends w/ in high school I am STILL friends w/ and the rest-might sound bitchy but ask me if I give a fuck,m'kay?

[Skelji]

I've got mt HS reunion this year too.

I'll be staying home, thanks. Those days are history for me.

[upperdeckfan]

Quite a few years ago, invitations were sent out for my 10yr HS reunion. A friend called me to tell me I was on the MIA list. I lived 1 town away, and my parents still resided in the town. I don't think I missed much.

[thinksnow]

I just got a phone call to confirm my address about half an hour ago.

I friend and I are going together, so we can make fun of the idiots that "never left." That is to say, the ones that still live in the little HS groups, living their Al Bundy glory days and trading beer stories over tales of touchdowns and being cool. Married to their (or their former best friends) HS sweetheart, with the kids in tow and extra 40# packed on, they should be a sight to see.

I did the 5-year and was quietly amused the whole time. This one should be fun.

[Snooooopy]

I live thousands of miles away from my high school, which is a dandy excuse for why I'm not going this summer.

[Totoro]

I'm actually enjoying my high school days. I can't wait to go back for my reunions, and piss off all the people I don't like (everybody) by being rich and famous.

I'm being naive, aren't I?

[delphica]

I'm going to put in a good word for high school reunions. I had very mixed feelings about going to my 10 year, which was about 4 years ago. On one hand, I always felt very much on the fringe in high school. I "dressed funny" (this was the mid-80s, so I had a sort of Gothic punky look going on), I wasn't "popular", I was mercilessly picked on by one particular group of obnoxious guys for the whole four years. On the other hand, I did have a small group of people I felt close to, mostly from the drama club, and while I kept in touch with some of them, there were a few that I had lost touch with and would like to see again.

So after much waffling, off I went to the reunion. I was half dreading and half hoping for the sort of denouncements, dramatic revelations, revenge, and general over-the-top antics that one sees in movies. But, to my surprise, most of the people there had turned into adults who could have civil conversations. The ringleader of the boys who teased me asked about my job, and showed me a picture of his daughter. A snobby girl (as I remember her) told me she bought a house next door to one of my cousins, and gushed over how cute my cousin's children are. Someone did make a remark about how oddly I dressed in high school, and before I could get indignant, several other people chimed in saying "Yeah, how did you have the nerve to dress like that? I was so scared of being different, and you just did what you wanted to do! That was so cool!" I almost choked on my watered-down cocktail from the open bar. (And yes, I did get great satisfaction from being told I was "cool" by the captain of the soccer team who had married his cheerleader girlfriend and lives next door to his parents, so color me shallow if you will.)

Overall, the whole evening was rather pleasant, if in a bland and overpriced sort of way. I got back in touch with one friend who, as it turns out, lives not to far from me, and since the reunion we have gotten together a few times. In general, the attendees were remembering the good times (and it's true, some people had more good times than others), and it was in a sincere way. I had expected I would be laughing behind my hand, so to speak, at some people, and once I was there, I felt petty for thinking that. People made all sorts of different choices in their lives, and those who came to the reunion were good natured and genuinely interested in other people and what they were doing now. I suspect there were one or two people who came with an agenda of "I'll show them!" but the effect was pretty minimal.

[JasonDean]

My ten year reunion is also this year. I guess I probalbly go if the handful of high-school friends I still talk to are going. It will either by blandly pleasent or good for a laugh. I guess I was one of those odd people in high school. I was "alternative". Of course this was before alternative was cool. I mean shit my best friends saw Pearl Jam play a local pub on the day Ten was released. There was only 20 or 30 people there. I wish I had gone but no I had to work early the next day. But i digress. Most people in my grad class didn't know me. They all thought I was this stoned, drop out loser type. I guess I sort of was but I had enough brains to get me into and through university as well. Ya I'm going to my reunion if only to shatter some peoples myths about what hair dying, dope smoking, freaks really turn into after ten years.

ps I think Gross Point Blanke is my favorite reunion movie
"I should have brought my gun"
"what"
"should be fun"

[FairyChatMom]

Parkville High School class of '72 had a 91/2 year reunion - I'm not sure why they couldn't wait a few more months. It was held in an armory - what a wonderful venue for a marginally horrible local rock band!! Out of 848 graduates, perhaps 200 people were in attendance - some of whom were non-class spouses. My former best friend showed up with her husband (non-classmember) who walked in the door, looked around, and left. Another friend, who I'd known since 1st grade, had changed so much, I didn't recognize her. But most of everyone else there were locked in the high school mentality. None had left the area. I was in my 8th year of active duty in the Navy and I'd been coast to coast and back. I pretty much decided then that I'd never waste my time attending another such debacle.

Not that it mattered - said class has never held another...

[flodnak]

My class may be holding a 15 year reunion next year... if anybody bothers to organize it. The 10 year was thrown together at the last minute because everybody figured somebody else was going to do it. And if you had known my class, you would have figured something like that was bound to happen.

If I happen to be in the States when they hold it, I might go just for the hell of it. But probably not. I didn't want to spend the first four years with most of these people, why go to all that trouble to spend another evening with them?

But I'll admit I'd like to see how the last fifteen years have been treating my "beloved" former classmates. You know, who got really fat, who's still stuck in a dead-end job s/he hates, who can't get through the reunion without a screaming match with their spouse... *MEOW!*

[TruePisces]

I've got my 10 year coming up next year. I haven't decided if I want to go or not yet. There's the part of me that would like to see certain people I haven't seen in 10 years, friends that I've lost touch with... but then again, most of the group I hung out with weren't really much of the do-ers for things like this, anyway. We hung out in the chorus room during school and didn't care much for what was popular and what wasn't. I was in the Honors classes with most of the popular kids, and they'd talk about doing this school related activity or that school related activity... and it just didn't interest me.

If I were still living in Venice, I'd go. But having to fly back from NY... I just haven't decided yet.

[ponch]

I'm not going (obviously). It's 10 yrs.

SInce all are being so forthcoming, my story. I grew up in this little town in VA....back in the days I was pretty much an introvert, we were fairly poor, and to top it all off, my sister and me were the only hispanic folk. SO here I am, a little chilean boy, from a completely different culture, growing up feeling like an outsider. I had friends, but not too many, I was kinda shy.

I moved away from there when I was a sophomore, then I moved again after my junior year. So I'm getting a reunion request for a high school class which graduated about 400 people, maybe ten of which knew who I was.

I made some great friends, and came out of my shell that year, but those who became my friends I still keep in touch with.

So I ask myself, why do I need to go back and show a bunch of strangers that I drive a late model luxury german car. :D

[Saint Zero]

No force on earth could have drug me back to my 10th reunion 2 years ago. My wife wondered if I was going to go, but I passed on the whole adventure.

*sigh* Most of the rest of this would be pitworthy, so I'll just say it averted a lot of bloodshed for me to stay home. I'm a lot less introverted and tactful these days...

[Ann Onimous]

My 20 year reunion should be next year. I'm already planning the trip home. I definitely want to go. I want to prove to these people that even the most undesirable person in the class can find somebody...

Plus I have lots of family there. The trip won't be a waste. :D

[iampunha]

Ah . . . high school. :: projectile-vomits in the direction of Portsmouth, RI, making sure not to hit Euty or any other RI dopers on the way ::

There's a gathering in DC scheduled for May, I think the week of or the week right after exams. Um, yeah. But it isn't a class gathering so much as a gathering of people in the area.

It requires a tie, among other things, which doesn't surprise me (boarding school and all). And it would be mighty amusing to se a bunch of women in their 20s wearing ties.

However. I keep contact with that school to a bare minimum for a reason. And though I'm tempted to say "Hey, morons, why are you scheduling an event DURING some people's exams?" to the coordinatorbitch-person, I don't want to waste the effort.

So no, I have no plans to ever go near the place again. I'd rather not flip out and have to start pounding the fuck out of whatever was nearest. Especially if the nearest object was human.

[Ringo]

I'll echo delphica to some degree. My 30th is this year and I'll go. I went to my fifth, my tenth and both of my 20ths.

I enjoyed them all. The "both" above refers to the fact that I spent 7th-11th grade on a scholarship at a prep school, where I eventually became perpetually on the outs. These were hippie lynchin' times and I just could not master the appropriate haircut, which finally got me expelled. And I managed to be the first person ever caught smoking on campus (by my next-door neighbor and biology teacher and assistant soccer coach). The offense had never occurred before, so there was no known sanction. I didn't even get a detention hall, but everyone who followed got expelled.

While I'd started out well in sports (very much a requirement), when the hippie thing enveloped us all, I was more open about not actually enjoying football, and quitting the team was not a popular move. I became one of the bad boys who wrote of the benefits of legalizing marijuana in the underground rag.

And had manny detractors (by the end the coach regularly used me as an example of pond-scum). So I went on over to the local public high (right next door as a matter of fact) for my senior year.

I have found that all the h.s. b.s. has evaporated in its entirety. People with whom I had dismal relations were quite companionable. This phenomenon is possibly partly due to it having been a small school (graduating class ~45 people) in a big little city.

My chief antagonist (captain of the football team and SG pres, whom I ran against) hosted a dinner party at his house for one of the events, and displayed his mighty wealth (so what?). And I enjoyed some truly stimulating conversation with him (sports attorney).

So, I'm not saying that you won't encounter any of the old b.s., but my experience has been great so far, and I would encourage anyone to go, try it. WTF, you can always leave if they won't talk to you (but I doubt that'll happen).

I'll confess my one attendance at the 20th for my H.S. that I attended for only one year wasn't GREAT! But it was an OK schmooze - much bigger school, ~3200 students in grades 10-12, but once again, everyone had blown off the b.s., or so it seemed to me.

[Wastrel]

I strongly urge you to go with a plunger on your head.

Homer's HS reunion, awhile in the future
Homer: Hello, Dondalinger.
Dondalinger: Homer, is that a plunger on your head?
Homer:*looks up* D'oh!

:D

[Ringo]

And that all of course reminded me of yet another memorable high school reunion I attended.

I think I might've posted this before, but WTHey. When I graduated from my 2nd H.S., I was invited to my 1st (7-11) High School's senior prom. My date was a 10th grade gal from my history class. We'd gone out once before (John Mayall concert with this opening act none of us had ever heard of before - Alice Cooper). We had a great time and I spent a long time, as the sun came up, agonizing over the kiss goodnight. Sheesh!

Well, I was fresh out of high school and life whirled and twirled before me. So I dived in...and never saw her again.

Until... one friday afternoon 22 years later I get a call at my office (how she found me there I'll never know). It's her! Her 20th reunion is coming up and she had such a good time at my prom she wants to know if I'll be her escort. I'm astounded and tell her this will require SO clearance. My SO says that if this gal mustered the cojones (yeah, I know..., you'd have to know my macho girlfriend of the time) to do this, then I should go and be her escort.

So I did. And I had a blast! These folks were by and large under my political radar during high school, but I found manny post high school acquaintance and bona fide friends. One of the guys in my poker club! A gal I dated in college! A bunch of music friends!

And my date was as beautiful as she'd been 22 years before. That was a great reunion!