Maybe most people look forward to their high school reunions. I look forward to their passing. Do you feel like I do? Am I the only one who feels this way? Most ironically, I am quite the nostaligic type. Yet, a lot of bitter memories remain that just keep coming back to life with each damn reunion…
Maybe it’s just me… 
I’ve enjoyed mine, but I have a couple of friends/classmates who refuse to attend. I asked one of them why, and she said “Everyone ignored me in school, I don’t expect it’d be different now.” She’s 65 and still pissed. It’s sad, because she’s been in the Peace Corps and has done some other interesting stuff, and I know she’d be welcome. Time passes, people do grow up.
I think people who enjoyed high school look forward to class reunions.
People who didn’t, not so much.
I’ve never gone to any of mine, my husband has gone to several of his. He still has the same circle of friends he had in HS. I have 2 people I still speak to from HS. 1 of them married into the family or there would only be 1.
I can’t think of a single reason why I would pay good money to spend time with a bunch of people I didn’t like years ago.
I was more or less OK with high school but don’t see any particular reason to go back and see all whatever-percent-of-300-graduates that would show up. I still keep in touch with the people from high school that I want to. There’s only one guy that I miss, but no one else knows where he is or how to get in touch with him, so going to a reunion wouldn’t help.
My 10th reunion was awesome. Everyone was as nice and friendly as we were back then. Of course, the people that show up are the people who want to be there so no one who shows up is really a party pooper.
Facebook didn’t take off until a year or two after our 10th, and now it seems like everyone from our class is friending everyone else (not me, but I’m picky about FB friends). There were 255 of us and only maybe about 100 have come out of the woodwork but still, it’s pretty great.
Of course, like Mr.** Acantha**, almost all of my friends today are friends from high school (or even pre-school!) so it’s not like I strayed very far.
I didn’t like those people then, why would I like them now? I showed up at my 10th just to see how many cheerleaders had gotten fat and pregnant. Now, I don’t even bother to look them up on Facebook.
I couldn’t care less. Nor do I want to spend the money to travel across the country to see people I didn’t know then, I don’t know now, and don’t need as new friends.
I’ve been out of high school over 30 years and have never been to a reunion. I have no intention of going to one either. I had a boyfriend in HS who had already graduated so my circle of friends were not my peers. With only a few exceptions, I have no desire to see these people again.
Oddly, I just ran into an old classmate who told me that the 30th reunion pics were online. Color me surprised when all (10) of the attendees were the same clique that were in high school together. They wouldn’t have given me the time of day then, I can’t even imagine what we could have in common today.
I had very little use for my classmates when I was in high school, but I didn’t hate them or anything. I skipped the first couple of reunions (a five year reunion? Really? “So what have you been up to?” “College.” “Hey, me too!”), but my 20th was a lot of fun. I’m probably never going to be bestest friends with any of these people, but so what? I’ve known a lot of them since I was five, and it was nice to see them and catch up.
That said, I’d have been much less inclined to go if it required a large expenditure of time or money. I’m local, so for me it was $50 and however long I decided to spend there.
I’m going to 2 of my reunions this year (20th, from 2 high schools) and I’m looking forward to it. I didn’t go to my 10th reunions so I’m not sure what to expect.
I didn’t go to my 10 year reunion. I wasn’t interested in the people then and vice versa and most likely not now. My sister did look it up on Facebook and it seems I’m not alone. The next reunion combines two class years and will be held at a Dave & Busters, seriously.
Bizarrely enough, I can’t remember when I graduated from HS, other than knowing it was the year that “Money for Nothing” was big. 1985?
I look at classmates.com and I don’t recognize a damn person, and their names don’t ring any bells either. I also went to HS for five years ('cause that’s how it was set up in Georgia at the time, from 8th-12th grades) and in all that time I never went to a single dance, football game, and never participated in a single extra-curricular activity. I didn’t even bother to have my senior picture made.
HS was just the place I had to go before I was allowed in college.
So, as far as HS reunions go… never been to one of my own. OTOH, my wife went to her tenth and exorcised a lot of demons that way. (It never occurred to me to worry about what some kid thought of me, especially 10 years down the road, but apparently she’s not unique in this regard).
I’ve never attended any of my reunions. But this year, thanks to Facebook! a couple of old high-school friends have talked me into going. It’ll be our 35th and we’re focusing on seeing the people we did like back then. If the soshes want to be snotty bitches, let 'em. We’ll just shine them on, to use 1975 speak.
Over here, its usually the anniversary of the school opening, rather than the gathering of a year. My school’s ones are pretty disorganised. The first one my sisters & I attended together & it said it was an open day, so we went to lunch first. Turned out it was an open morning! :smack:
But one of my sister’s teachers was still there & let us have alook around.
The 50th had a variety of things. My sister decided to go to the dinner. A lot of her year turned up & she had a blast. The other sister & I went to the Open Day. It was sad how rundown parts of the school were. But I also went to a present pupils talent performance & that was amazing.
But I feel like some others. My best friend is still my best friend& I’m in touch with another by email. By chance another woman works in my small town. But why make an effort to see people I didn’t like that much at the time?
I’m another person who will never, ever go to my high school reunions. I have a couple friends who went to a couple and said it was just like high school only people were fatter and uglier, and just as mean. I’ve got better things to do.
I still live in the immediate vicinity of where I grew up, and have remained in touch with most of my close friends. I went to the 5[sup]th[/sup] and 10[sup]th[/sup] before my friends and I realized that we just weren’t that interested in seeing casual acquaintances again.
I couldn’t go to my class’ 10 year reunion due to being out of the country, but I was disinterested and didn’t RSVP, even though I got an invitation at my parents’ house. I don’t know. The only reason I’m in touch with anyone I went to high school with is due to Facebook.
I didn’t even hate high school or anything. I don’t feel particularly bitter toward it or my classmates. If I happen to be in the area for my 20th reunion, I may consider going, but I’m not going to travel across the country to go. That’s not for another six years, so it’s impossible to say what will happen between now and then, but it seems unlikely at the moment that I’ll be returning to California, where I went to high school, anytime soon.
I guess I feel indifferent toward the whole thing.
I’ve never been and don’t plan to ever go.
Something which amazed me the other day: I am not on Facebook but happened to be on (one of my kids’ account) and looked up a person from high school. I then saw who the person’s friends were … and I was shocked to see some of his former tormentors there. I wondered if they had apologized to him.
I can’t imagine any of those people being able to make an apology to me sufficient for me to ever call them “friend”. Facebook is a weird place.
I missed my 5th (grad school) and heard that people really had not changed.
I went to my 10th and it was fun but I pretty much hung out with the same folks that I did in HS. People still hadn’t really changed that much, just gotten real jobs.
With some trepidation I decided to go to my 20th (I’m local). Completely different experience. Spent a lot of time talking with all kinds of classmates, including many that I knew vaguely if at all in high school. I had a great time (and by and large I had a crappy high school experience, I was a complete nerd).
It may take 20 years but people mellow out a lot - most are married, have kids, actual careers, etc. Stuff that seemed like a big deal then was just not, now. I remember a few people who were really assholes to me then and if I’d bumped into them I would have been civil.
Maybe I’ve just matured a huge amount in the last 5-10 years but I can’t see holding a teenage grudge into middle age. I’d still be pissed at the guy who stabbed me but the guy who threw a sandwich at me in algebra class? We were all a bunch of teenagers and we all did stupid stuff, and we all grew up. Not worth the brain power to stay angry.
Dunno how old the OP is but if it’s the 20th or later, I’d say go. Have fun. It’s not lunch hour again.
It IS. There are people who friend me who I don’t even KNOW from high school. Either that or they were drinking buddies from when kids would go out in the bar during college.
In some ways I agree. I have had a lot of fun on Facebook renewing old friendships…if it weren’t for Facebook I never would have been reunited with them.
Unfortunatly my high school was FILLED…and I mean FILLED with prejudicated MEAN nasty snobs. I was bullied and tormented SO much that it basicly gave me low level post tramatic stress disorder. Let me put it this way…youd think that a prep school would be MORE snobby then public school. WRONG.
Why would I want to reexperiance the HELL of high school? High school was just a very agnonizing six years (in our system we went to jr high and then high school from three towns)
I have no good memories of high school. Even my parents now say that they should have sent me to a Deaf School or a hearing school with a sizable dhh program.