I'm NOT going to my 10 year HS Reunion

The BBQ Pit
41

I graduated class of 1983, and was not a very popular kid although I tried (too hard) to be one of the popular kids. Basically I hated HS and was glad to graduate and go to college where people (at least some) were more mature and accepting.

I got an invite to a 10th reunion in 1993. The cost, as I recall, was higher than the typical ticket for a Grateful Dead show at the time. I figured I was not going to spend more to go hang out with the jackasses I went to HS with than I would spend to go see people I really like, namely Jerry Garcia and the rest of the Dead family.

I recently got an e-mail from someone in my class, I think because I registered at Classmates. I may or may not go, prolly not. Just not worth spending the $$$ on. I may send some kind of bizarre statement…make it read like the liner notes from a Bob Dylan album or a Richard Brautigan short story or something…

42

I graduated class of 1983, and was not a very popular kid although I tried (too hard) to be one of the popular kids. Basically I hated HS and was glad to graduate and go to college where people (at least some) were more mature and accepting.

I got an invite to a 10th reunion in 1993. The cost, as I recall, was higher than the typical ticket for a Grateful Dead show at the time. I figured I was not going to spend more to go hang out with the jackasses I went to HS with than I would spend to go see people I really like, namely Jerry Garcia and the rest of the Dead family.

I recently got an e-mail from someone in my class, I think because I registered at Classmates. I may or may not go, prolly not. Just not worth spending the $$$ on. I may send some kind of bizarre statement…make it read like the liner notes from a Bob Dylan album or a Richard Brautigan short story or something…

43

My 10-year very nearly didn’t happend because the dingbats who were “elected” back in HS to deal with it * sent out announcements/invitations without having first confirmed that the venue would be available on that date (4th of July - sheesh). Then we kept getting stupid “please ignore the last letter” letters, til everyone was so confused it looked like half the class was going to show up at the Hoiday Inn on a certain weekend, and the other half thought they were supposed to be at the Ramada the next. I did go, and it was mildly amusing. Mildly.

*“Reunion Chair” was a Sr. class office, elected along with Class President and all that - so no matter who ran, you knew one of the rah-rah types would win, and that it would end up being a big disaster. I don’t see how anyone who attended our Jr. Prom put on by those airheads didn’t see it coming a mile away, but the same people who did the fiasco that was the prom put on the reunion. Go figure.

44

I really wanted to go to mine. I don’t know if they even had one, but I probably would have crashed it if I’d heard about it.

I went to a private school/campus that had Kindergarten->College, so I went to school with the same people from grade one all the way to dropping out in grade 11. I didn’t graduate. No invites to a reunion.

I’m extremely curious about the people who tormented me in grade school. By the time high school came around, I was popular with a whole other bunch of people, and rather indifferent to the whole school scene. I wonder what ever happened to them? Did they outgrow their mean tendencies? Are they cold adults? Did they ever learn a damn thing? Did they learn compassion? Are they still desperately keeping up with appearances? Has their perspective changed over the last 12 years? Are they still the same people dressed up in adult clothes? I wonder if any of them even remember teasing and ignoring me in grade school. Not that I’d quiz them about it, neccessarily. I’m certainly not in pain over it. In fact, I treasure the experience, because it allowed me to become a stronger human being, and enhanced my feelings of compassion. I like who I am now, and I found that it wasn’t the happy times that allowed me to grow, it was the bad times. I wonder if the others have had life altering experiences.

But alas… no invite. It would have been a truly interesting evening, if for no other reason than to find out that they’re all still dull.

45

At least you had enemies.

46

Like most of you I had bad memories of high school, and approached my 10th year reunion with great trepidation but went anyway. What a surprise when I had one of the best times of my life.

We tend to think of people as stuck in the time when we last saw them but people do a lot of growing up between their late teens and late twenties. Didn’t you?

Give your old classmates a break. I think you’ll find out that they are like everybody else you now know in your age group. There will still be a few who haven’t gotten beyond 19, but most will be fine folks with a lot of insight gathered over the past ten years.

47

Jeez, HS really wasn’t THAT bad for me!

I went to the 10 year, it was cool. Nice to see some friends who I had not kept up with (I am an alcoholic, so you can see why!).

We had a 15 but I missed it.

The 20th is coming up in 2005, & I will probably go.

My dad’s 40th was in 1999. Whoa. Even he was a little freaked out!

48

Dredging up this thread to post a funny story…

I didn’t particularly hate high school and I wasn’t particularly popular or unpopular. I was smart but not geeky, was a theatre/drama girl but also liked to party. I didn’t have one particular clique but I did dislike the snobby people…

Anyway, I get a notice that my 10 year is coming up that summer and my good friend Mary and I decide to go as each others’ dates as we were both singletons at the time. We took a rather devil-may-care attitude about the whole event and got a bit glammed up for it in a silly way. Mary was Bettie Page-esque with a black bob with bangs and we both wore slutty platform heels with our dresses.

The freaky thing was how much better all the girls looked than the guys. I expected the girls to be really catty, too but everyone, for the most part, was nice. All the guys had beer bellies and were all dressed exactly alike in dockers and golf shirt. :yawn:

I caught up with a few people; including one woman who’d been in the Peace Corps and was now teaching at an urban high school. She made me feel so humbled. Then there was the sweet, ex cheerleader who’d married the captain of the football team telling the story, over dinner, how during their son’s circumcision, the doctor cut off the tip of his penis!

Whoa Nelly!:eek!:

But I’m not attending another of my high school reunions ever again.

Why?

There was a mentally challenged guy there who’d graduated with us. Now, I’ll admit I don’t remember him except rather vaguely. He walked around the reception with his high school yearbook and would ask you to point out your picture in it and then he would ask you to sign it. It was all rather sweet and honestly, I was amazed the guy still had his h.s. yearbook after 10 years.

I heard, weeks later, that a group of people at the reunion went to security and told them that he wasn’t apart of our group and that he was kicked out!

Yes, some things just never change and I decide right then and there that I left that town for a reason and I’m certainly not associating myself with these people ever again.

But, my lord, that isn’t very funny, is it?!?

Actually, there is a funny bit in all of this. Remember I mentioned going with my friend as her “date”? Well, while filling out the form that was sent to us with stuff like “are you married?” “where do you live?” “what do you do?” with her, we came up with the idea to write in that we were lesbians, living in California on an organic, free range chicken farm and had adopted and were raising, seven Chinese orphans.

I’d completely forgotten about it as we turned it in with our money months before the actual reunion. Well, Mary actually met a guy at our reunion and they started going out shortly thereafter. During one of their first dates, he asked her very seriously, when she’d broken up with ME and what happened to our farm and all those orphans!

Guess someone did indeed get our forms.

49

Unlike a lot who have responded in this thread, I liked my high school years.

I wouldn’t mind going to my 25 year Reunion.
But time, distance and money stand in the way.

Not many people from my high school even know that I live 2000 miles away.

High School was not a bad time for me, I’m sorry that it was for others.

50

I am not even going to my highschool graduation ceremony tomorrow:). Mostly due to the fact that I really graduated a semester ago and the cap and gown cost 50 dollars.

51

trishdish thank you for posting that. I liked it

52

I could give a shit too, I have not kept in touch withany of those i knew, and not being popular, have no wish to be bored by the motherfucking idiots of the “rahrah” crowd.

I hated my cocksucking school district, and all of the little whiny punkass brats that attended those schools, and made my school years a truly wretched time. Some teachers rock but, kids are assholes.

Perhaps by the time the “reunion” comes round, i will be at a dopefest having the motherfucking time of my goddamn life!
Or maybe i shall be skydifing or on a totally fucking cool vacation. Aww yeah!

what a motherfucking waste.

53

I don’t even think my high school holds reunions. Which is strange, because it was a big, relatively spiritive school. I had an interesting graduating class, too.

Really, though, man, what a hassle it would be. My weekends are tight as it is.

54

Mine’s coming up next month. I’m even going to be in town for the entire week. I’m still not going to go, though. I get enough of social contact in my normal life. I’ll be damned if I have to do it on my vacation, too, particularly with people I barely remember and didn’t care much for either way even when I was in high school.

Didn’t have a particularly bad time in high school, except for the soul-crushing boredom–it’s just that, all things being equal, I’d rather read a book. Same reason I didn’t go to prom, either, IIRC. :slight_smile:

55

I went to both my 5 year and 10 year reunions. The 5 year wasnt all that bad really. Got so see some people that I had not seen in a few years.

The 10 year sucked though. I think it cost 40 a person for a crap place and crap dinner. All told out of 200 people in my class I think 40, max, showed up. I only knew a few of them and only two talked to me. I was one of the first to get there and no one sat next to me until all the other tables were filled up. It was a waste of time. I don’t know if I will goto any more or not. And from what I did talk to other people no one had changed. Hell we had some people show up in jeans and t-shirts.

56

are we allowed to say where we went…if not someone can remove this…i went to Tabor Academy in Marion MA…my ten year is in two weeks, i can’t wait to go, and i had a pretty crappy time myself, but i changed as did most of the other people, from what i could tell at the 5 year.

anyway, this all reminds me of Romy and Michelles HS reunion…

57

I was class of '87 and we had a 5-year reunion that I went to: way too expensive, I remembered no one’s name (we have exactly 1 thing in common, we went to the same high school), generally hated every minute I was there.

If they had a 10-year reunion, I didn’t hear about it (and wouldn’t have gone any way). Both I and may parents have moved out of town and are at least 2 moves away, so they have an excuse for “not being able to find me” if they need one.

A couple years ago, we did have a “choir reunion.” The high school choir director my freshman year had taught there for something like 20 years, and we had at least one former student from every class he taught (I was the only one from my class). It was a blast. We “practiced” during the day on Saturday and held a concert that night then sang at several churches the next morning. We raised a pretty good chuck of change for the high school music department from donations and ticket sales from the concert. There is tentatively going to be another one next year that I am planning to go to. With this group, I have something in common, even though most of them I only met at the first reunion.

In the town where I live now, a distant relative (third cousin, once removed) with the same name as me (although we have never met) graduated 4 years earlier than I did. I have gotten several phone calls as a result. (When I had a son’s birth announced in the paper I got a congratulatory call from someone who thought I was him. I got a couple condolence calls when his father died. I got instructions to go to the “base clinic” to get some paperwork taken care of before I can go one assignment {I think he is in the military}) The first such call was an invitation to his 10-year reunion. If I get invited to one of his other reunions, I might go to meet all of these people.

58

We’ve never had a high school reunion. I think it takes too much in the way of organizational skills. Plus the bus schedules from Dannemora and Sing Sing make the logistics difficult for attendees.

We didn’t even have a prom, though Cori Sue tried to organize one.

Whatever happened to Cori Sue?

59

I’d completely forgotten about it until I saw your post. Then my brain engaged and remembered the lesbians on the chicken farm story.

Our 15 year (gulp) will be next year. With our without an invite, I have no intention of going. Maybe Auntie Em, who posts here and I’ve know since I was in the 6th grade, will go and give me a recap. :slight_smile:

60

My HS graduating class was huge–over 700. In the invitation for the 10-year reunion a few years ago, they had an MIA list (“If you know where these people are, tell us so we can invite them, too”). I looked over the list and if I could name 20 people I actually would’ve been interested in seeing at the reunion, 18 of them were on the list. So I knew they weren’t going to be there. Fortunately, a few friends were on that list, too, so I’ve been able to use it as blackmail (“Do me this favor or I’ll rat on you to the reunion committee”).

My wife, sweetheart that she is, is under the strange delusion that I was somehow popular in HS (uh, yeah, all us powerhouse nerds were) and that I’m just being modest when I recount how miserable and boring HS was for me. She wanted to go to mine for curiosity’s sake and I might–might–have indulged her if it didn’t cost in the 3-digits plus airplane travel. On those terms, no way.

With each successive reunion, fewer and fewer people will go, thus decreasing the likelihood that anyone will be there that I care(d) about. I keep in touch with a few friends from HS, but most of the ones I haven’t wouldn’t be at the reunion anyway since they were in a different year (older and younger). Not a time in my life I relish revisiting for any reason.