My 30-year class reunion is coming up. I have no desire to attend. I went to a rural K-12 school where I had next to nothing in common with anyone for 13 years. I used to joke that the most beautiful sight I ever saw was my home town in my rearview mirror. That’s not entirely true, and I do get sentimental about the old place once in a great while, but that doesn’t mean I want to sentence myself to two hours or more in the company of people I have seen almost nothing of in three decades. My mother (and grandmother, in spades, before she passed) seem to view this as some sort of moral failing. Oy, gevalt.
How about you, oh Dopers? Do you go to your reunions? Why or why not? And if you don’t, are there folks who chide you about it?
Nah. I don’t have any horrible memories of high school as a living hell but neither did I make many lasting attachments and the few people I half care about I’m already friends with on Facebook.
Typing that makes me think that modern social media has probably done a number on the High School Reunion industry.
My class holds them every 5 years. I went to the 5th, 10th and 25th. I skipped the rest including my 30th last year. I’m in active contact with the people from high school that I actually like, and see most of them regularly.
I probably won’t go to any more. Well, maybe like the 50th, just to see if any of us are still alive.
My High School has never found me, so I don’t get invited to those. (I would never consider going in any event–terrible people) I do get notices for my College reunions. I haven’t gone yet. Probably never will.
No interest in them. Same story as the previous posters. I wasn’t with any of the “in” crowds in school and I’ve kept in touch with the few I would call friends.
And me going to the reunion would just be cruel considering how much better I’ve aged then all of the ones on the HS FB page. Seriously, some of them could be extras on The Walking Dead without needing a makeup budget.
I’ve been to the 10 year high school reunions: 10th, 20th, 30th, and this past year, 40th.
Starting with the 30th, it has been more about just “seeing” old classmates (some from elementary school). Not so much to compare notes on how we’ve aged, but just to find out what paths their lives have taken. Also for the 30th and 40th, it became less about whether you actually knew or hung out with some of these classmates, so much as just “recognizing” them as having been classmates. So even though I never talked with them while we were in school, it was still fun to talk to them at the reunions.
A lot of people rationalize 1) I already stay in touch with the friends I want to stay in touch with, and 2) there is no one else I really care to see. To this I can say that I’ve had nice surprizes at all the reunions. People I knew, but had just not thought about in forever. Others were people I didn’t care for much in high school, but had turned out to be cool with age, and was nice to connect with.
I went to the 10th, it was pretty cool. They tried to have a 20th this year and it totally fell through! Out of 250 grads, only like 20 signed up for the reunion so they had to cancel the reservation. Then about 10 of us got together at a local bar and that was kinda dumb because I didn’t really want to see most of the 10 who showed up.
I loved high school and loved a lot of the people, and still keep in touch with a TON of them. From what I could tell most people who didn’t want to come to the reunion said “Everyone I want to keep in touch with, I am already in touch with.”
The first high school reunion I had heard of, the 45th, was a few years ago. I might have gone if I wasn’t 3,000 miles away from the school.
I have gone to 2 college reunions, 20th and 40th, and will go to the 50th since we get to go up on the stage during graduation. For the 20th my kids got to stay in my old dorm.
I also went to a small school in a rural town. We’ve only had one reunion, so far, our 10th. I did attend and it was pretty fun. Most of the people I graduated with never got out of that town, so the reunion was just another day of drinking for them. But it was nice for me to catch up with old friends. My 20th will be coming soon and I plan to attend again.
That’s pretty much my situation, except that we have had more than one reunion.
I think there’s a stereotype of class reunions of their being organized by the cool kids for the cool kids, but in ours, by and large, it’s regular average classmates that have put them together, and the cool kids are the ones who largely begged off.
Plus it gives me an opportunity to actually meet some of my facebook friends. But that’s another story.
Never. High school wasn’t fun for me, there were major issues in my life, at the time.
Besides I know I’m the one they’re talking about, and guessing about. If I turned up there’d be no more mystery. Pretty sure that would totally ruin it for them.
I’m not really a, ‘go back’, kinda girl. It’s not really in my nature. I’m an, ‘every forward’, type, through and through.
Never had much interest, but was living in my hometown when the 40th came up. So I helped plan it and also attended. Once was enough. People rarely change.
I skip them, because they’re in South Africa and that’s a long way to travel just for a reunion. But I would have liked to have gone. I have fond memories of the place, and it was mostly a good bunch of people. I have a number of teachers that are still around that were influential that it would be good to see again. Judging from Facebook even the jerks seem to have mellowed out and turned into reasonable adults.
Maybe a future one will coincide with a planned trip and I’ll get to go. But probably not.
I went to my 20th HS reunion, and traveled many miles to do so, but at that time I still had a lot of relatives in the area including my mother and my favorite aunt & uncle. Some of the people I had hoped to see, though, still lived there, and they couldn’t be bothered to even drive across town.
Now, all the relatives have either died or moved elsewhere, so it’s no point going back just to reconnect with people I wasn’t all that close to in HS anyway. My best friends in those days were either in the class ahead or the class behind, and I have kept in touch with them, but they aren’t going to the same reunions.
I went to my 25th, and had a good time. But that was enough (My 40th is in two years). High school, and the town it’s in, and the people I knew then, are all part of a chapter of my life I’ve gotten past.
Not that it was bad; some of my best and happiest memories were of that time and place, but I’ve moved from there (although only 100 miles), and more importantly, moved on with my life. I just have no need to see them again, or talk to them, or in fact, relive that time. The past is past.
I went to several of them, but stopped after my 35th. All anyone wanted to talk about was their ailments. I went to school with old people - go figure. My wife went with me, because she wanted to see if any of my old girl friends were fat.
I am in contact with some of my high school friends, including my best friend, and once I found out “so-and-so owns a dry cleaner/so-and-so is a janitor/that girl I wanted to ask out but never did is a neurosurgeon” there was not much point with everyone else.
High school wasn’t bad for me, although I was never one of the cool kids, but it was a long time ago. So I probably won’t go to any more of them.
For me, high school was basically a grey blur. I had a small group of close friends whom I 'm still friend with 25 years later and then several hundred people who were basically faces to me.
I didn’t know them then and I don’t want to know them now.
And Facebook keeps me apprised of anything major (deaths/marriages/children/whatever) via friends of friends even if I don’t personally seek out the info.
