23 Jul 2018

Does A High School Reunion Make Sense in 2018?

I recently got a text from Sasha asking me if I would be attending our high school reunion this coming September. Had it really been 10 years already? In all honesty, once I left that place I might have done everything that I could to scrub that part of life out of my history. I walked away with a handful of friends that are still my friends to this day and that was all I needed. If this information showed me anything, it’s that high school reunions in 2018 are not what they were 20 years ago. It’s no “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” that’s for sure.

First off, how are people even contacted about this? How do people learn that an event like this is even happening? Recently I’ve been hearing more and more about a school shooting, will an event like this be safe? I wonder if there are panic button for schools? Those were my first questions to Sasha. “You’re not a part of the Facebook group?” There it was. Of course in 2018 there would be a Facebook group that would bind us all together, but let’s be real, that’s the actual high school reunion in itself, isn’t it? After looking up the Facebook group, it turns out I’m probably the last person in my class of 600+ people to join it. Mission accomplished – I wanted to try and go unnoticed and that happened. Let me tell you how long I got lost in that rabbit hole that was the Facebook group though – hours. Hours of looking up my former classmates and seeing if I knew a person only to realize that their last name has changed because they had gotten married. Hours of seeing default profile pics crammed with five people instead of just the one because people my age have families.

It’s amazing how much you can actually achieve in 10 years. What’s also astonishing is how you can do the opposite and diminish your own accomplishments to feel like you haven’t done nearly enough in 10 years. The concept of a high school reunion is fascinating to me. I imagine this is something that I thought about after leaving high school. I don’t think that this is something I looked forward to, but I assume I had an idea about what I wanted to wear, how I would talk about myself and who I wanted to see.

The other question I have about my reunion is wondering why there are tickets – even pre-sale tickets. Why is there a cost associated to this at all and why do our alma maters always try and suck the money out of us? Don’t y’all know that I’m still paying off my own student loans for college? Two years after I graduated, I found myself at a bar with many of my classmates that I hadn’t expected to see. It was wild and a shit show and unless my high school reunion gets to that level, I’m not sure I see a point of going to an event where everyone has to pretend like they are their button-up perfect selves. Who knew I would have so many feelings about an event? I certainly didn’t. Readers, have you attended your high school reunion and did you enjoy it? If you missed it, do you regret it?

Posted on July 23, in Life

2 Comments

  1. PSac wrote:

    With the ‘09s, I’m in the boat where the people I want to see and keep up with I see and keep up with. It’s “so easy” with social media now. I’m guessing that 50-75% of the people who end up at our reunion will be the people I’ve been actively avoiding or the type I’ve wanted to cut out of my life. There doesn’t need to be any cathartic affirmation of that. I’d much rather grab a beer with the friends I’ve made a conscious decision to keep around. It’s cheaper and I’ve spent the last six years realizing that high school [never ends] and is a place I’m fine without.

    Posted on 7.23.18 ·
  2. Katie wrote:

    Hey Peter, I’m totally in the same boat! And I don’t really want to pay money to see people that I haven’t made an effort to see in the last 10 years 🙂

    Posted on 7.23.18 ·

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