I would've gone if I lived closer to my high school, but I wasn't going to pay for a plane ticket to attend.
But then again, only people who would be there are people who still live close to my hometown so may not be the funniest group.
I would've gone if I lived closer to my high school, but I wasn't going to pay for a plane ticket to attend.
But then again, only people who would be there are people who still live close to my hometown so may not be the funniest group.
I went to my 5th, and had some coulda, woulda, shoulda moments with some of my former female casemates. (As in should I have hooked up with one of them.)
Then I went to my 25th reunion and a former classmate accused me of ruining his chances with a female from our home town. (He was a little tipsy when he told me this but had other classmates around to laugh at me. My only participation was I had received a ride from this guy when the girl was in the car!)
Then I went to my 40th reunion and enjoyed it. However the post-script wasn't so nice as my "best friend," totally spurned me because he had some problems after high school. My crush from a lower grade was also there but since she let herself go, there wasn't a lot of good in that!
Overall I do not think that high school reunions are a good thing unless you were popular in high school and most of those people will attend. At the 40th reunion someone did show a video of all the people who died. I guess that was good, but not for everyone as there were some tears.
I ran a track meet the day of my 10 yr. Lowered my 5k PR to ~14:50. No doubt I made the right choice.
Wow, fun group here. I just went to my 20th and it was a total blast. Mine was a casual event at a bar and everyone was hammered, as everyone there has the same anxiety/awkwardness about going and alcohol cures that. If it was a formal affair maybe it'd be different, but I'd really regret it if I didn't go. If you had a good high school experience no doubt you should go.
I didn't have any friends in high school. Though my high school sweetheart ended up being my wife and she was very popular. Luckily she doesn't care about that stuff so I am in the clear to not have to go.
Lambda lambda lambda wrote:
Wow, fun group here. I just went to my 20th and it was a total blast. Mine was a casual event at a bar and everyone was hammered, as everyone there has the same anxiety/awkwardness about going and alcohol cures that. If it was a formal affair maybe it'd be different, but I'd really regret it if I didn't go. If you had a good high school experience no doubt you should go.
That would be a different story. My high school was enormous, just my grade alone was 600 some students. That makes it less fun as the chances of knowing anyone drops significantly.
So I did attend my 10th reunion and that was a loooong time ago. Here is what I found out. While in HS, a lot of kids put on a face that was not really them. It was an act intended to make them cool or more desirable. It included the use of clichés adopted from sitcoms (now, social media).
At the reunion, I got to see some of my own friends from HS but in a very different light. They had gone thru some difficulties and there was a sense of honesty in their demeanor that I found to be refreshing. I also got to meet people who thought highly of me in HS but I was too much of an unapproachable jerk at that age; was able to speak to them for the very first time at the reunion. Also got invited to a party where I met a girl who was a friend in HS and she would end up stalking me for some time after the reunion. Then I got to meet others whom I had not even noticed and had to ask several others whether s/he was really in our school.
I think about that experience to this day. In hindsight, I still had some growing up to do even after my 10th but it provided me with a point of reference that is useful to me now when my own kids are approaching HS.
As I said, that was a long time ago. I have not kept in touch with any of them. I have also not kept in touch with those friends I had when I was 28, either and there is little opportunity to reunite with that bunch (as I no longer drink Pale Ale). So, do take advantage of the HS reunion before those friends become grandparents. You will remember it forever. But this is the experience of a HS kid who was a quiet math nerd, playing in the orchestra as well as being a varsity midfielder/forward in the soccer team. The reunion is only one evening and you are free to leave at any time.
Graduated nearly 30 years ago. Owing to a lack of interest we haven't had a reunion yet. I couldn't care less. I've kept in contact with anyone I gave two $hits about. There is a tiny bit of me that would want to show off the fact that I am fit, have a great job and have a full head of hair.
mystory wrote:
So I did attend my 10th reunion and that was a loooong time ago. Here is what I found out. While in HS, a lot of kids put on a face that was not really them. It was an act intended to make them cool or more desirable. It included the use of clichés adopted from sitcoms (now, social media).
At the reunion, I got to see some of my own friends from HS but in a very different light. They had gone thru some difficulties and there was a sense of honesty in their demeanor that I found to be refreshing. I also got to meet people who thought highly of me in HS but I was too much of an unapproachable jerk at that age; was able to speak to them for the very first time at the reunion. Also got invited to a party where I met a girl who was a friend in HS and she would end up stalking me for some time after the reunion. Then I got to meet others whom I had not even noticed and had to ask several others whether s/he was really in our school.
I think about that experience to this day. In hindsight, I still had some growing up to do even after my 10th but it provided me with a point of reference that is useful to me now when my own kids are approaching HS.
As I said, that was a long time ago. I have not kept in touch with any of them. I have also not kept in touch with those friends I had when I was 28, either and there is little opportunity to reunite with that bunch (as I no longer drink Pale Ale). So, do take advantage of the HS reunion before those friends become grandparents. You will remember it forever. But this is the experience of a HS kid who was a quiet math nerd, playing in the orchestra as well as being a varsity midfielder/forward in the soccer team. The reunion is only one evening and you are free to leave at any time.
Thank you for this post. Through facebook and being open to talking to old classmates I've run into somewhat randomly I've made similar discoveries. Unbeknownst to me, there were a number of people in my class and the one ahead of me that I had (or at least now have) a great deal in common with and likely would have been great friends with back in high school had I been more social and talkative. I was also somewhat of a nerd as I was always in the accelerated/AP/college credit courses and was also very dedicated to running since I was state champion. My image of everyone around me was dictated by what the popular kids were doing and how they were acting, and I knew I had next to nothing in common with any of them, so I didn't bother reaching out to anyone else. I could see myself having a good time at the reunion if I could chat with these people, but at the same time I want to actively avoid a large percentage of the other people I went to high school with, so it's kind of a wash.
I still doubt I'll go, but I appreciate all the responses.
didn'tlike-em then whytry now? wrote:
I intend to add another year to my "Non-attendance streak" of 53 years in a row
Nice! I'm at 35.
Lambda lambda lambda wrote:If you had a good high school experience no doubt you should go.
Getting drunk with a bunch of people you don't know. What fun!..
These threads always expose who was who in HS.. If you think people are there to brag, or "relive HS" then you must have gone to an entire school full of A holes.
I went to my reunion this past year and had a blast. Great catching up with a lot of people that were a ton of fun. There was ZERO talk about jobs or who's this or who's that, mostly catching up talking about our families, how everyone's parents are doing, etc.. Fun times, good drinks, good people.
mystory wrote:
So I did attend my 10th reunion and that was a loooong time ago. Here is what I found out. While in HS, a lot of kids put on a face that was not really them. It was an act intended to make them cool or more desirable. It included the use of clichés adopted from sitcoms (now, social media).
At the reunion, I got to see some of my own friends from HS but in a very different light. They had gone thru some difficulties and there was a sense of honesty in their demeanor that I found to be refreshing. I also got to meet people who thought highly of me in HS but I was too much of an unapproachable jerk at that age; was able to speak to them for the very first time at the reunion. Also got invited to a party where I met a girl who was a friend in HS and she would end up stalking me for some time after the reunion. Then I got to meet others whom I had not even noticed and had to ask several others whether s/he was really in our school.
I think about that experience to this day. In hindsight, I still had some growing up to do even after my 10th but it provided me with a point of reference that is useful to me now when my own kids are approaching HS.
As I said, that was a long time ago. I have not kept in touch with any of them. I have also not kept in touch with those friends I had when I was 28, either and there is little opportunity to reunite with that bunch (as I no longer drink Pale Ale). So, do take advantage of the HS reunion before those friends become grandparents. You will remember it forever. But this is the experience of a HS kid who was a quiet math nerd, playing in the orchestra as well as being a varsity midfielder/forward in the soccer team. The reunion is only one evening and you are free to leave at any time.
This is similar to my experience -- I had a great time at my 10th reunion. People had, just about across the board, grown up. I'd been through some of the challenges life can bring, and so had others, and we were ready to be honest about that, and the challenges we'd faced back then, with each other.
I think it helped that just about everyone from my school went to a four year college, and to ones scattered across the US. When you have that, instead of a lot of people hanging around their hometown or largely going to the same few local colleges, people get a chance to get away from others' expectations of them and figure out anew who they are and who they want to be, rather than getting older while still reacting to those expectations. (I'll admit, some of us still had fun reminiscing about the days when we made our cross country team great again. No harm in that, though.)
Also, to this day I couldn't tell you who the "popular kids" were at my school.
Yes
The majority here were unpopular, skinny distance runners with very few friends. No wonder they hated high school.
Facebook pretty much eliminates any need for reunions. The whole point of a reunion is to catch up with people who I like enough to want to see, but who I don't care enough about to maintain an actual relationship. That is exactly what I use Facebook for.
I skipped my 10th and just skipped my 20th this year. Now... I live half way across the country... so the lack of an easy trip is part of it. But the folks I care about I keep up with on social media, and the folks I don't care about (more than finding out if they got fat/divorced/etc) I can easily find out that info on FB.
I don't go home often anyway, and based on the FB group they put together, most of the folks who went were folks who had never left to begin with. A few folks flew in... and power to them, but I just didn't care enough to.
Just check FB wrote:
Facebook pretty much eliminates any need for reunions. The whole point of a reunion is to catch up with people who I like enough to want to see, but who I don't care enough about to maintain an actual relationship. That is exactly what I use Facebook for.
Exactly. I love seeing pics of their kids, knowing when they or their parents die and all those other milestones, but I'm not willing to go to a reunion to do it when I can do it in my underwear while sitting at my computer. I don't like them that much.
I went to my 20th this year. Saw lots of people I hadn't seen since graduation. Guess what? I had a good time catching up with everyone. Even people I had nothing in common with back in high school.
People change. Some of the immature brats from school had turned into nice, successful people with good families. I was the goofy running loner who had no time for anything except cross country and track, and I enjoyed visiting with folks. Many from my class really did turn out to be good people.
My point is that you shouldn't assume that because you didn't like people back then means you won't like them now. A lot changes in 10, 20, or 30 years.
"My point is that you shouldn't assume that because you didn't like people back then means you won't like them now. A lot changes in 10, 20, or 30 years."
True. My class had me down as dead for 10th and 20th years, I threatened to sue the company that organizes for defamation. Put a stop to that silliness fast. But I am interested in knowing which classmates and teachers have died and how. Especially teachers because they can toughen you up for life, if they like you, and you know it.
Graduated with some wise freaks/geeks, I noticed the more astute ones, are following my lead by keeping a low internet profile and using nyms, proxies, and fake names to find out what they think about whom. Kind of fun but when they talk about me, doesn't bother me...they make me laugh in my sleep.