It was my first time at this kind of thing. There were some of the usual cliches. The nerdy kid who is now a self-assured financial success. The handsome jock who never got anywhere in his career. A girl who confessed to a crush on me in the fifth grade.
When I first walked in it was like going into a room of strangers. But the more I watched the more it came back to me. When I talked to someone I could start to see the same person I remembered from long ago. Something that was a surprise to me (though it should not have been) was how so many seemed to fall into the same pattern. The “in” crowd was clustered together at the tables in the front and didn’t circulate. There were the “slackers” on the last row as always. Once again I felt like the awkward socially-inept loner. Most of them had done this before, or they had stayed in touch with their friends. One guy told me that he still hung out pretty much with the same buddies he had in high school.
When I think back on high school it seems like I was just waiting to get out of there, especially my senior year. College friends and memories quickly replaced those from high school. What little I heard of high school acquaintances mostly came by way of my mother who passed on tidbits of information she picked up from her own circle of friends and that source dried up long ago when she and Dad moved out to the country.
I don’t know if I would do this again. I would have enjoyed it better while the memories were fresher. I had to do it at least once though.
Comments (5)
I wonder how many of us NERDDY types are sucessful while the IN crowd isnt? I have seen a few right here in town that were so very popular in school and now are real bums!! Makes me feel really good that I was not popular, that I was a geek, that I was painfully shy…(still am) Everybody should go to their class reunion. Especially the older ones, I have my 45th coming up in two years!!
I sort of wonder why you went; my forty fifth is this year; I have never gone to one and will never unless 50 somehow seems special. My daughter though is going to her 20th this October. She could have been more social than I was, though.
thelrd in TEXAS
ps–I like the colorful milipede/centipede/whatever.
Good question, Larry. Just curiosity I guess.
I wouldn’t have met up with the Kman again unless it had been for our high school reunion…sometimes good things come of reacquaintances *grin*
The people you met in high school are still the same. The faces sure have changed; they’ve matured and aged overtime, but their attitudes will still be the same. You’ll also find that the people you hated back in high school you could try to like from now on.