My 20 year reunion is this year, but since nobody can be bothered to contact me I won’t be going. Even if they did get in touch with me, I still wouldn’t go. High school wasn’t a complete beat down for me that it can be for people, but I would just rather not try to re-live the past - at all.
I would gladly go to my high school reunion for the simple fact that now I am bold enough to tell people to fuck off.
When I was school, I was pushed around a lot for being the quiet weird girl. Now I am the mouthy weird girl and I would love to tell the assholes what I was always thinking.
You should go. All the guys will be fatter and balder for free bonus laughs.
You’d be surprised. The friend who dumped K in the previous story ALWAYS brings up stupid crap I did in high school (that got him in minor trouble with a substitute teacher one time). He seems to obsessed with that story.
You don’t know me vewy well! 
Well, I played football in high school.
And there’s no question I’m fatter now than then.
Still have all my hair, though.
I am always amazed at how many people had a miserable time in high school. I liked it just fine.
My 25th is coming up in 2007.
There you go.
I skipped my 10th, mostly because I felt embarrassed that I had just finished college a year or two before. (Yeah, I was one of those people who took forever to get through college.) I skipped my 20th because, frankly, I just didn’t care. 25 is coming up this summer and I still haven’t decided if I want to go or not. There’s probably enough distance between then and now that I don’t feel like I need to impress anyone, and yeah it might be nice to see how folks turned out.
Oddly enough, I had a blast at my wife’s 30th last year. I guess there’s a lot less pressure when it’s not *your * reunion.
Most of my friends in high school, the few that there were, weren’t in my same graduating class. So I can’t think of any reason I’d want to go to a high school reunion.
I had a reasonably good high school experience. I worked out with the football team during the off-season to keep fit and I knew most of the jocks. I was all-state in choir and show choir, had decent to lead roles in the theatrical productions, on the academic team, officer in a couple clubs, etc. I was friends with most of the class favorites and popular people(according to the yearbook “favorites” pages at least) as well as the homecoming court for a couple years. I did peer mentoring for anti-drug programs as well as community service and work for local theatre and dance troupes.
I had friends from pretty much all the high school social strata. Those I could see continuing a friendship with beyond high school I have continued my friendship with. The others were friends because of our shared experience, not any interpersonal “spark” between us. That experience is over and the friendships have faded as they naturally do. We’ve all moved on and a single night of “reunion” won’t change that, so what’s the point?
Enjoy,
Steven
I skipped both my 10th and 20th reunuions. My 25th comes up in 2007 and I probably won’t go to that either.
I have no desire to see most of the folks I went to high school with. There are a couple of folks I wouldn’t mind seeing, but I can live without seeing the rest. High school wasn’t miserable for me, but it wasn’t the best time of my life.
I don’t keep in contact with any of the people I went to high school with. I occasionally run into someone I went to school with, but not often. Interestingly enough, I ran into someone I knew all through junior and high school just a few months after the 10 year reunion. After catching up with life since school, he asked why I didn’t go to the reunion. I told him my reasons and I asked how the reunion was. He told me it just like being in school again, same cliques, etc. That’s just the reason I have no interest in going. I mean, grow up folks, life goes on.
I found out one of the “beautiful” people in school died of alcohol poisoning a few months ago. Turns out she turned into a big lush. She was Queen cheerleader, etc, etc, etc. Go figure…
Skipped all of 'em so far (25th was a couple years ago.) Couldn’t care less about the assholes I went to HS with.
Didn’t like them then, don’t like them now, there’s nobody I hold any undying grudge against but neither are there any I wish to renew contact with. My best to them but the ship has sailed, sunk, been salvaged and sailed again.
Sampiro (Class of '84)
I wouldn’t waste my time or my money on returning to that personality void.
Man, that sounds familiar – we moved just before I started my senior year of high school, from Fayetteville, Arkansas to small (~2000 people) town in eastern Arkansas. When National Merit Scholarship results were announced, the newspaper in Fayetteville published its usual low-key list of the seven or eight National Merit Scholars from FHS somewhere in the back pages, near the commodity price reports (including my name, since I was enrolled there when I took the PSAT/NMSQT). In my new town, however, the story (with picture) ran on the front page of the local weekly paper, taking up about a third of the page. Of course, the local school had exactly nothing to do with my education to that point, but there hadn’t been any National Merit Scholars from there in three years, and they’d only ever had one other (who, coincidentally, was a senior at my college during my freshman year, and a close friend of my roommate – he also had been primarily educated elsewhere, and just happened to be living there during his last couple of high school years).
I ended up on the front page of the local paper at least twice more that year, and in some story or another several more times over the course of the year.
Time is a huge equalizer. I never attended any reunions over the years, mainly because of distance and timing. I was also part of the nameless rabble in high school, but had a circle of friends.
This year is our 40th. I’m part of the planning committee, which consists of many of the more “popular” people from back then. It’s amazing what 40 years can do to one’s perspective on things. In talking to these folks, I find out that at the 20th reunion everyone was very much into how successful they were or weren’t. Old grudges were still fairly fresh and the same cliques formed. People talked about their teenager problems. At the 30th, everyone was very immersed in grandkids and trophy houses and Mercedes.
At the meetings we’ve been having, everyone seems to have realized that we are all just humans trying to make the best of life. The playing field has leveled significantly. We talk about being a bit older, joke about forgetting things, and speculate on retirement plans. They seem to find me fascinating, since I got out of this town and spent much of my life in other countries, learning languages, seeing things that they’ve only read about, etc.
I would highly recommend attending later reunions. If nothing else, they’re a good source for networking if you’re looking for work. The early ones are too competetive, and the same people who wouldn’t speak to you back in high school are probably still not going to speak to you today. Why go through the frustration?
As I mentioned above, I moved just before my senior year of high school, so I’m not officially part of the graduating class at my previous school, and hence don’t get invitations there, and I have no interest whatever in seeing any of the people at the school I actually graduated from again.
I enjoyed my college years enough, though, that I’ve considered going to my 20th class reunion next year. I either liked or was indifferent to most of the other folks in my class (and since there were only about 200 of us, I knew almost all of them), and really enjoyed seeing many of them seven years ago at the wedding of a former roommate. I’m still in touch with only a couple of people from my class, but most of the faculty from my era is still around (particularly in the English department – they were all reasonably young then).
I went to 3 different high schools, and would only consider going to the reunion of one of them. Except, it’s not the school I graduated from, so I wasn’t invited to the reunion.
I was shocked that my sister didn’t go to her reunion lastyear.
She was popular and well liked. She’s very successful now and has a seemingly perfect life. She said she has nothing incommon with those people anymore. I thought THAT’s why you’re supposed to go, (besides seeing old friends, of course).
I have zero interest in going to any of my highschool reunions. I don’t think we even had one for the 10th or maybe they had it and I never found out, I dunno.
I just realized that the 20th (if there is one) is only 2 years away. Has it really been that long since highschool? Where’d the time go?
In school I always had the social skills of one of those monkeys that was raised in isolation. One or two semi-friends but that was it. After attending 9th & 10th grade at one high school, I was expelled for reacting violently to taunting and harrassment. My last two years in another high school were when I started suffering from depression and ceased giving a damn about my grades. I cut lots of classes and because I didn’t earn enough credits to pass 12th grade, I ended up getting a G.E.D. No graduation ceremony, no yearbook, no class ring. I have absolutely no reason to go to a reunion.
Hell, I don’t even remember who *I * was back then, let alone anyone else.