I don’t know if the reason for it not working is obvious to Texans or Americans (I’m neither) but I am curious. Can you please explain?
In the fall, in Texas, everybody who draws breath is worshipping in the Church Of High School Football on Friday evenings.
Same in Iowa, where I grew up. My college roommates were all from Texas and passed this cultural awareness along to me.
I did not go to high school and so do not have any HS reunions of my own to attend. However, I did attend my wife’s 10th. It was held at a restaurant aboutb2 miles from the high school where everyone had graduated from. I knew absolutely nobody and basically spent the evening making small talk with a woman who was in the same boat: the spouse of one of the invitees who likewise knew nobody. My wife had not been one of the popular kids in high school and had not stayed in contact with the friends she had had in HS so I was surprised to see her making the rounds and catching up with lots of (to me) random people. I stayed on the sidelines and essentially waited to go home.
So for me it was an evening of mediocre food with a bunch of strangers.
I just asked her about her 20th, which was 4 years ago. She said there wasn’t much of one planned and she had no desire to go to it. She said she might go to her 30th.
Ah ok, thanks for that. When I’ve been in the States on business or vacation, I’ve always been amazed by the size of US high school bleachers - they’re typically as big or bigger than Canadian university or some professional bleachers.
The typical Canadian HS bleachers I’ve seen are maybe 10 tiers of benches in an aluminum, borderline temporary structure. And outside of the specific HSs involved, nobody would be interested.
Out of the 1979 class of about 720 people, I remember the names of maybe two or three. I doubt anyone other than those would recall anything about me. High School was terrible (I had some great teachers) but I don’t need to talk to anyone from those years again. I’ve also lost touch with everyone from college, and that’s more of a shame. I had some remarkable friends in college.
Our 10 year reunion was held over a weekend in 82. The first night was a fancy dress party at the Peabody Hotel. I was still friends with the people I cared to have as life-long friends. About a dozen of us attended. We went all out, the guys even wearing tops and tails. Before we arrived, we took some LSD. I won a door prize and the acid hit me just as I was walking up to the bandstand to get it. A friend of ours was running sound for the band and yelled out “you go, Aurora!”. It turned out that for me tripping was not conducive to talking to a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in 10 years. I don’t remember a lot of that party. But we had gotten a suite and we all migrated up there with some like-minded cohorts to drink and smoke pot. That was a great time and I have the pictures to prove it. 
The next night was a river boat cruise on the Mississippi. I did spend time talking to some folks I had been church friends with also. They were all still churchy and we had nothing in common but it was ok and the last time I would ever see them. I remember feeling a little sad that that part of my childhood was forever gone.
I haven’t been to any others but my friend who was class president has gone to all of them (he felt obligated) and shared his impressions over the years. Next year would be 50. If it’s held, I’m not sure he would go. He is a cancer survivor and a lot of the cheerleaders and jocks who still organize these things are huge anti-vax Trumpers. (I know this because one of my friends is friends with them on Facebook for some reason.) At this point, I don’t think there is even any snark value to be had.
It also doesn’t help that a lot of us have teenage kids who participate in activities on Friday nights, like football, marching band, and so forth.
I enjoyed the 10th and 20th. The 30th was organized through Facebook. I’m not on Facebook, so I didn’t hear about it until afterwards.
One thing I learned: pictures of me come out much better when I don’t know I’m being photographed.
I was a nerd, so I don’t expect people to remember me. But it was a bit creepy to encounter people who remembered me, but I didn’t remember them. That happened just often enough to be scary.
I ran into the star quarterback at one of the reunions. It was a bit awkward at first, but once we established that we had never met before that night, we both relaxed and had a nice chat.
I went to an informal 8-year reunion at a local pub over Thanksgiving weekend; I was living across the country at the time but visiting my folks for the holiday. I had a beer, talked to a few people, and left after an hour. Still, I enjoyed that beer and that hour. I almost didn’t go, but I’d happened to run into an old friend the day before and she talked me into it. But she couldn’t talk me into the 10-year reunion at $50 a head, for hors d’ouvres only, at a steakhouse (I’m mostly vegetarian, and that was not a situation I felt like making an exception for.)
My 20th would be this coming spring. I’m not feeling particularly enthusiastic about the idea of cramming into a room with a bunch of probable anti-vaxxers. But if someone sets up a low-key hang at a bar with a patio, I might drop in.
Didn’t much like those people then, don’t think 50 years has made much of a change in that opinion.
Nope, I’ve never felt the slightest temptation. I dropped out when I was sixteen and went to adult classes to get my diploma. Best decision I ever made.
I went to a couple - there was a very informal one at the school a couple of years after graduation and one at around either 10 or 20 years. That one was planned for a 3 year span of graduating classes and a reunion for the same three classes was planned for last October ( for one class’s 40th) - but COVID hit and it hasn’t been rescheduled yet. When it gets rescheduled , I plan to attend. I lost touch with a lot of people between the first reunion and the second, but now we have reconnected through Facebook.
My husband was very surprised by me at that 10/20 year reunion. Typically, when we are at large events, he’s the one who knows everybody and I’m just sort of on the sidelines - and this was probably the only time since before we got married that I knew a lot of people and he was sort of on the sidelines. Of course, he’d see the same thing if we went to a retirement party for one of my coworkers - I apparently act much differently when I am in the company of familiar people, even if I haven’t seen them for a decade or two.
I’ve been invited to one, 10 year, couple of decades ago. Didn’t go, not interested. I did run into a lady who was in the same graduating class I was a few years ago. She actually recognized me, I had no clue(still don’t) who she was. No recognition at all. Not her face, her name, nothing. Looked her up in my old year book, still nothing. Kinda weirds me out to think about her recognizing me and remembering my name after all these years
I went with my wife to one of hers. Made me glad I never went to one of mine.
I was told not to come.
By your Mama? That ain’t no way to have fun, son! 
I’ve gone to every 10-year reunion for the last 50 years. Some of them were less stellar than others, but I’ve found something fascinating at every one. The quiet bookworm who got her PhD and wrote a bunch of books that are now standard in her field. The big dumb jock who started his own company and is now a millionaire. The cool guy several rungs higher than me on the social scale who never advanced beyond “cool guy in high school.” The Scientologist; the classmate who didn’t want to shake my hand “because of the prions;” the obnoxious guy whose even more obnoxious son is running for the U.S. Senate; and all the cheerleaders who loosened up over the last half-century and became normal human beings I could have a conversation with.
And these aren’t even particularly well attended!
One of mine (40th?) was interesting: a dual reunion with the high school on the other side of town.
We’d all gone to the same Junior High, but suddenly they’d decided we needed a new school on the outskirts, drew a line down the middle of the city, and half of our friends disappeared, and we lost track of each other.
So I finally got to chat with some of my best friends from 8th grade, who I’d have never reunioned with otherwise.
Yo Mama so old, Tom Selleck trying to shit-hook her into a Reverse Mortgage!
Wait… That’s not funny.
I went to my 20th anniversary high school reunion in 2015. The most memorable thing about it was the DJ. For the most part, he played music that nobody had heard of and that was not danceable. Then, somehow the topic came up of whether to have a 25th anniversary reunion or to wait until the 30th. The DJ said something like, “you should have your 25th reunion, because some of you will be dead by the 30th!” What a way to keep the party going!
The matter of whether to have a 25th reunion became moot because of the pandemic.