This one is for the Olds out there.
Just this week I was added to a Facebook group for my high school graduating class (2002, what what). The purpose? To spread the word about our ten-year reunion.
The problem? The reunion is next weekend. Oh, and I now live across the state from where I grew up, so it’s a $200, 8-hour train ride back. Needless to say, I’ll have to wait to schmooze and judge my fellow alumni until 2022. Let’s hope by then I’m so wildly successful that money isn’t an issue.
What about you, Persephoneers? Did you go to your high school reunion?
15 replies on “Lunchtime Poll: It’s Reunion Time!”
I don’t think I’ll go to mine when it rolls around (2004) unless some of my friends that I’ve kept in contact really want to and don’t want to go by themselves. I only have one or two people I’ve lost contact with that I’m curious about, and I’m pretty sure I could find them on facebook if I really wanted to know.
Mine is next year. I still live in the same city so with that and facebook not much has been missed in finding out whats up with everyone. I do however want to go if only to have a Romy and Michelle moment walking in with my bff in metallic dresses we made. I’ve been waiting for that moment since middle school it’s gonna happen damn it!
My 10 year is next year (2003). I am so going. Even though I live out of state; I’ll use it as an excuse to see my family. I hated high school and was miserable. But I’m fucking awesome now and I want to show off how awesome I am and how awesome my life is to all the people who looked down on me.
Mine too! My friends and I are going. We’re aiming to be the only group with no married, pregnant, or parented members.
Congrats!! I am also non-married, non-pregnant (and will stay that way), and non-parenting. So is my best friend from high school, we will probably be the only ones. I love my life, and I want to show up and not complain about kids or anything, drink a lot, and have a fabulous time talking about my world traveling and work in the tech industry.
Excellent. More booze for us, that’s what I say.
We had a 5-year reunion (I graduated in ’95), but I didn’t go. I don’t remember why. Since then, reunions have seemed pretty much unnecessary due to Facebook and the fact that anyone I want to still be in contact with, I already am.
I skipped my ten-year high school one. I didn’t know if any of my friends would be there and was kinda depressed about facing the people who always thought they were better than me, and I dithered so long that another manager took off the same weekend and I couldn’t go. I haven’t been to an official university reunion for my class, but I’ve gone to a few special events for the theater department since they were the only ones I gave a shit about.
I have yet to attend a high school reunion, although my class (2003) has had three or four. One of the advantages of boarding school was a graduating class of 72, so we were all more or less close. However, even though my classmates hailed from all over the globe, a large chunk of them went to college and then settled in the eastern half of the US, making reunions take place in New York and Tennessee and making it impossible for me to attend. If there were one closer to Seattle, I’d go for sure. :)
I also graduated in 2002, and had a reunion this summer, but it was awkwardly timed and so I didn’t go. While it’d’ve been interesting to see what people are up to, I had a strong suspicion that I’d be left awkwardly lurking around the edges of conversation and be bored senseless. Plus, I’m still in school (albeit grad school) and a number of my friends have gotten fancypants jobs and careers and spouses and occasionally kids (!!!), and while I’m pretty content with where I am at the moment, I get grouchy when I have to defend it in the face of a more typical life trajectory.
I have missed two so far. I wanted to go to both, out of a sense of morbid curiosity and because it’s a bucket list item. The first time, I had gotten married a few weeks before the reunion and there was no way I could afford a road trip. My 20th reunion was this past July. I had plans to go, I even had a place to stay lined up, but that was the weekend my son’s band played their EP release show. They had been working on that cd all sumer long and they were psyched to sell it. I also am a board member for a group of glass artists, and we had a meeting set up for the same night as my reunion that we were all really excited about. In the end, I decided I would rather stay home and live the life I have now instead of driving 9 hours to look back at the life I used to live.
I guess I’ll just have to wait another ten years to cross it off my list.
BINGO.
Nope. Even though I bailed my junior year, I was invited to my 5 and 10 year (Class of 97) reunions, but I had no desire. Most of my close friends were older, and with the wonder of FB, anyone I want to keep in contact with, I have. I have no desire to make idle chitchat with a bunch of people I haven’t bothered to talk to in over a decade. Even though the reunions were within 20 minutes of my house, I couldn’t work up the motivation to go. Or care.
I’m also skipping my ten-year (it’s in two weeks!), partly because I live out of state and travel/hotels are expensive and I have no job, partly because I have no job and no bragging rights, and…well…partly because I keep up with the people I care about and don’t feel like fake-smiling and making small talk with the Type A+++ crowd.
Also, there was drama about the original plan (a “family friendly”, $50, booze-free, red-meat-heavy cookout before the homecoming football game — from 3-6 on a Friday) and lots of tantrums about people not making it because of work or travel costs (mostly from the girl who organized it and her BFFs). The plan has changed to “take over a locally-owned restaurant/bar and bullshit starting around 6 on Saturday”, which is NOT kid-friendly and the original organizer and her crowd will either skip or show up but make a big deal about not drinking. Even if I still lived locally…I’d be tempted to skip just to avoid the passive-aggressive crap.
Besides, I should at least have my Master’s by 2022, and will thus have something to brag about. And we’ll be far enough removed from high school that any lingering fixation will be more “hey, remember that time” and less “oh, you were friends with Steve, and he cheated on Sarah, so either explain yourself or I’m talking to someone else” (yes, unfortunately, really). Also? I’ll probably have a better wardrobe.
Class of 2000 here. Â I didn’t go to my 5th (out of state) or 10th (didn’t want to). Â I don’t foresee myself going in the future. Â Bottom line is I didn’t really enjoy high school, so I don’t see a point in romanticizing it and spending time with a group of people I could wait to get away from in the first place. Â I see my three best friends from high school regularly and we make a point to try to have a reunion weekend every six months or so. Â Otherwise, I keep in touch with almost all of the people I liked in high school via Facebook. Â That’s enough for me.