I went to my 10th, and probably won’t bother with the 20th next year unless I know that certain people will be there. Most of my class hadn’t left town, ever, and the same old folks were still having the same keggers in the same ‘secret’ place at the lake. I’m in touch with the ones I care to know about anyway.
Well, considering I haven’t seen these people in 20 years, I’m certainly not going to embarrass myself by getting loaded. I’m a cheap date…a glass of wine on an empty stomach and I feel a bit lightheaded.
My 20 year reunion was in 1999. I was a size 28/30 and overweight by at least the 112 pounds I’ve lost so far after gastric bypass surgery.
I almost didn’t go - I was 140 pounds (5’10") when I graduated, so needless to say - there was some trepidation. I am (and was) pretty secure about myself, so I decided to go.
Had. A. Ball. Everyone - to a person - recognized me. I was amazed, honestly. I, on the other hand, hardly recognized anyone. I had lost my HS yearbooks in previous moves and couldn’t “study up”. Everyone was polite, fun and I ended up sitting at a table with all of the people who had moved away from my home town (Jax, FL), which wasn’t very many of us - maybe a dozen.
At any rate, I’m glad I went.
VCNJ~
Eve -
As your newest crowned fan, let me tell you that you may be portly (which I would have to see to believe), but you are fabulous. Go!
VCNJ~
Until you said something about a slide show, I seriously thought you and I could have been classmates. Everything at my 10th (about 2 weeks ago) was identical except the slideshow.
I went to my 10-year reunion, only because a pilot friend from high school (one of my very few friends from that time) had borrowed a small plane and offered to fly us there. I didn’t like high school or most of my classmates, but it was some consolation to see that the coolest, most popular kids from my class were still in that depressing small town (not that there’s anything wrong with small towns in general), with apparently nothing to look forward to except a lifetime of looking back wistfully on the “glory days” of high school. Nothing to be envious of there.
When my 20-year reunion came around, I was in Japan, and didn’t go back for it. One friend who did go reported that the planning committee, which was about half black and half white (like the local population), couldn’t agree on the venue and music, so they had two separate reunions. I wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway, with just the white folks’ music to listen to.
The 30-year reunion is sometime this summer. My parents sent me the announcement, which I put directly in the trash. Though I’m 7000 miles away, I’m off much of the summer, and I could go. But no thanks. My hometown is a good place to be from. Far from.
I actually had more fun at my husband’s ten year reunion a month ago than I did at my own reunion a year ago. And I only knew two people at his.
Mine was pretty awful - what’s funny is that I was the chubby, not-so-attractive girl who never dated in high school, and when I went back for the reunion, I was the skinny, pretty girl with the engagement ring on her finger (I had just gotten it that day, so it was a big deal to me right then). Honestly, I’m not sure most of them recognized me - my friends did, obviously, but only because I walked right up to them and started talking. I enjoyed chatting with my friends, but the rest of them were the same little cliquey bunch they were in high school. The only time one of them paid attention to me was because I had worked at her favorite soap opera in NYC :rolleyes: . Yeah, whatever.
I’m not going back to the subsequent ones - I honestly don’t care. However, I will go back to my husband’s reunions whenever they have them because we had SUCH a good time there - his classmates went out of their way to include me in their discussions, they were all so friendly and nice, and we had a genuinely good time.
E.
Never been to one, but am helping plan our 40-year this summer, so I’ll be attending at least part of the activities. It’s provided some closure even after all these years. I was a shy member of the nameless rabble in HS, but still had good times. Now I speak my mind and take no shit from anyone (read ‘confident and secure’), so have changed significantly. Also, I still have all my hair. 
Went to my tenth and 20th, and would have gone to my 30th only I had a prior commitment.
I was in a fairly small class (about 120), so everyone knew everyone. It was great to see a lot of them again, though some of the people I really wanted to see weren’t there.
I just received an email about my 30th reunion, it’s the same weekend my stepdaughter is getting married so I won’t go. I did go to my 10 year reunion, as with many others, I was hoping to catch up with a couple old friends but neither showed up. The ratio of single gals to guys was about 3:1, I was single at the time and some girls that wouldn’t even look at me in high school were offering to buy me drinks. I ended up going home with someone and we had a pretty good time.
I enjoyed my 10th year reunion - I was a bit nervous beforehand, but went with a friend I’d kept up with, and we decided that if it was crap we’d bail, find a bar, and toast our wonderful partners and jobs. It’s just one night out of your life, and doesn’t really change anything about your life that you already love or already aren’t happy with. It was just drinks and nibblies at a bar, with about 70 of about 120 people in the year showing up.
An old enemy greeted me with “oh! you’re not fat!”, which was hilarious - I’ve always tended to be underweight and this stupid woman was clearly hoping that had changed. I had a lovely chat with the geeky boys we used to be friends with, and talked shop with people who I hadn’t been friends with (because they were much cooler than I was then) but bumped into at the bar. There was a small core of people who had been uber-cool at school, but they pretty much hid in a corner talking among themselves while everyone else was socialising with whoever they ran into. There was a lot of blurring of the lines of cool/not-cool, which was nice. One of the rougher guys came up to me and apologised in case he’d ever been mean to me, which he hadn’t, but it was nice of him to do the rounds checking just in case.
The end of the evening got a bit sad and druggy, with some people trying to make up for missed opportunities and lost youth, but my friend and I found another couple of gals and left to get hot chocolate while we were still having fun.
I’d say you should go if you’ll be able to sneak out if/when it gets stale 
I went to my 10th, which was interesting. The women all generally looked better than the men.
I also went to my 30th. It was ok. Lots of the people I graduated with (it was a small class in a small town) still live in that small town. I don’t, and I don’t have kids or grandkids to talk about like most of them do.
I don’t expect to go back.
OTOH, I’ve never been to a college reunion.
I didn’t go to my tenth. My twentieth is two years away. I won’t go to that either. I’ve moved on in basically every way that matters.
(Someone I know once suggested having a cardboard standee made and shipping that to the reunion instead. Be pretty funny; worth thinking about.)
I did, however, go to my tenth college reunion. That was fun.
My 20th is this month. Like others here have stated, I hated it then so why would I go? Plus I’ve always been the shy, quiet type (even to this day) so I’m certain no one would remember me. Waaaaay too akward a situation for me!
I’m still close to the same town though, so I’m tempted to do some spying. 
I ordered a booklet thingy they’re putting out afterwards so I can check out the chicks.
I wasn’t invited to my 10 year class reunion. I’d feel worse about it, except that about 2/3rds of the rest of my class didn’t get invited, either. It was the class president, the vice president, and the friends they’d been able to stay in contact with. It was held in a bar. They did not reserve the use of the bar beforehand, so the people who did show up were outnumbered by random drunks. I got all this from the one guy I’m still friends with from high school, who got invited himself because he was on the football team. Consensus among those who attended was that the whole thing blew, and they’re going to get someone else to arrange the 20th.
I didn’t make it to my 10th (the first one we had). I understand there was a pretty good showing.
I did make to 15. Kinda interesting. There were five of us whiteys present, and the other 100 or so Afro-American. The advantage–we stuck out pretty clearly, so just about everyone who knew us came over to talk to us.
We didn’t have one for 20 or 25, but I’d have gone. I wasn’t particularly close friends with any of my classmates, but I knew most of them rather casually.
My goodness…the most reprehensible, sadistic, absolutely worthless, first-ballot-straight-to-Hell people I’ve met in my entire life have ALL come from school. I’ve dealt with some pretty rude and obnoxious members of the general public in two previous jobs, and not one of them was a hundredth as bad as some of the classmates I had in high school. (Don’t say “immaturity”. Whining about homework or eating too much candy is immature. Compulsively making life miserable for someone goes in sociopathic.)
No. Never. Even if I was invited to one (which I haven’t).
I’d love to get in touch with the few decent and intelligent classmates I had, but nearly all of them left for the mainland after graduation and never looked back.
I kept forgetting about reunions until they had passed. Finally, for my 20th I called the Reunion People to check it out. They wanted $100 per person for an afternoon picnic and an evening dinner/dancing/get-together. I decided I could use the money (I had a wife and child by then) for better things and crashed the picnic - a public park and I didn’t eat their food.
I milled about trying to spot anyone I knew. Lots of kids attached to these people who were once kids themselves. One person came up and recognized me (that painting in my attic is apparently working just fine). I didn’t register him until a few minutes after we said goodbye. He was the #2 kid who tomented me through high school. I was too shy in school to defend myself, for the most part, which is why when I finally confronted them and asked “Why are you doing this?” the response was “Because you let us.” Me = :wally :smack:
I know this is childish and shallow of me, but I still got pleasure getting the little reunion booklet in the mail and seeing that my #1 tormenter was on the list of those people in the class who had died.
My 10th is next year, but I don’t plan to go. I’m still in touch with my small but close-knit group of friends from high school, and my best friend going back to 10th grade is my current roommate. Aside from those kids, I don’t really care what happened to anyone else and wouldn’t want to see them, so I’ll spare myself.