People, Self, Society

High School Reunions

Romy and Michelle. Aspirational attendees at the high school reunion.
Romy and Michelle. Aspirational attendees at the high school reunion.

Who is old enough to have gotten their 10 year high school reunion invitation? Most of us, I’m betting. What about 20 years? 30 years, even? Some even have a 5 year high reunion!

Recently, I received the modern invitation to my high school reunion. Via Facebook.  It’s not until June 2013 (I’m not THAT OLD YET), but obviously, people need to know well in advance so they can make travel arrangements, arrange time off work and all that jazz that comes with Needing to Impress your old school mates. By becoming PM or inventing Post-Its or something.

Romy and Michelle. Aspirational attendees at the high school reunion.

High school was a fairly bland experience for me. I went to the local Catholic high school in small town North Queensland. It was an OK school.

I wasn’t in the cool crowd and I wasn’t in the uncool crowd. There wasn’t really much of either in our school to be honest. I hung around with a group of girls who were perfectly nice. We all knew of the importance of studying and getting good grades so we could go to uni. So none of that “who cares about grades” thing that can so often happen in high school. I made some flailing attempts to stay friendly with those who also moved to Brisbane for uni, but that stopped after about 12 months because we had all moved on.

I knew to expect the high school reunion talk, but I wasn’t convinced it would actually happen. Then the invite rolled around on Facebook. I immediately declined. Another girl I went to school with re-invited me. I declined again. How awkward.

I thought about it afterwards and realised it would be pointless. Why? Because I don’t care and I don’t want to go. I am “friends” with some people from school on Facebook, so if I’m curious I can basically ascertain the  things we would have made small talk about at the reunion from taking 2 minutes to scan their Facebook. I don’t need to spend money on a plane ticket, and sit around a hall decked out with balloons and crepe paper to work out that Mary Smith* still lives there and works as a hairdresser, married with 2.5 kids, or Annie Jones** is ending world hunger working for the UN.

I don’t need to go to the reunion to know that at my high school reunion there will be four types of people:

  1. Those who stayed in the home town, did apprenticeships, lived at home with their parents for awhile and now own a house in said small town  (generally, they are married with children by the 10 year high school reunion date);
  2. Those who left town to go to the closest university to said hometown so that they could still be close to home and before the ink dried on their degrees, were back working and living in their hometown (generally, they too are married, to their high school sweetheart, by the 10 year high school reunion date);
  3. Those who left town because they were bored of it and now live anywhere but said hometown; OR
  4. Those who are “career driven” and left hometown for university and career opportunities  that weren’t offered in the hometown (usually very far away from small town) and never returned (generally not married with children by the 10 year high school reunion date).

Too, most people want to go and have their high school mates ooohh and aaahh at their achievements post school. The *nerd* turned into a Calvin Klein model, the *really mean popular and pretty girl* ended up a total drop kick and the *science weirdo* ended up inventing the iPhone.

We’ve all seen the movies. Hollywood dictates that girl/boy is nerd/loser/pimply/ugly/picked on at school. Girl/boy becomes beautiful Swan and invents cure for cancer. Swan comes to high school reunion beautiful and successful and makes all small town stayers feel inferior and shit because Swan is so amazingly superior in every way.

No, most high school reunions are not Hollywood cliches. But I dare say that there is a smidgen of truth in Predictable Hollywood storylines. Some slight smugness from every group towards the other, each thinking that their life path was a better choice and wanting to make former schoolmates envious of said life path.

WHO CARES? Not me. Everyone can do whatever they WANT. I just don’t need to fly 2000km and talk to people I haven’t cared enough about to stay in touch with!

So I’m not going. Anyone from high school who wants to talk to me? Well, they can figure it all out on Facebook if they really want.

Did you go to your high school reunion? Are you going to the next one? Did you become a Hollywood cliche?

* I don’t know Mary Smith and invented her in my head

** I also invented Annie Jones in my head, but she is doing really well at the fictional UN

 

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    • Monique Fischle

      I feel like the high school reunion has become a bit redundant (especially for the younger generation) because I can usually find out everything I’d want to know on Facebook. Having said that, I’m far too young to be even going to a five year reunion haha

    • http://music.johnanthonyjames.com/ John James

      I’ve actually never been invited to any, so it’s never been an issue…not sure if I would go if I was invited to one (Next year would be my 30th Year 12 reunion…so maybe someone is organising something…)

      I kind of drifted away from everyone after high school…I figured that if these friendships were meant to last, then they wouldn’t have faded away…I’m in contact with a couple of old school friends on social media, but it’s still only the occasional message (I know a couple read KK&T *waves* thanks guys :) )

      I think it would be weird-ish to meet my school friends again after 30 years…my gut feeling is that everyone would be somehow “less” than they were, because we all seem so important when we’re teenagers…I’d guess most people would be the same…a job, a wife, some kids…which is cool…but they wouldn’t be the kids I used to hang out with anymore…

    • Claire Wallace

      Zero interest in going to my 10 year reunion, which will be in 2014. I really think it would just be awkward and pointless, with everyone saying, “oh, we should catch up again soon!” and then not seeing them again until the next reunion.

      I still regularly see everyone from school that I want to see. There are one or two that I see less regularly but am still in touch with. As for the other 230 girls in my grade – well I hope they’re all doing well, but I probably wouldn’t even recognise the majority of them in the street!

    • Valentina B

      As Monique said, with facebook and social media the point of reunions has been made redundant. I can “see” what everyone i went to high school with is up to and therefore don’t have that curiosity of “what ever happened to ….?”

      My high school was a bit lame with reunions. We had 70 girls in our year level, finished school in November 2004, had the first reunion in Feb 2005 (just to see what everyone is up to but i suspect it was more to brag about uni entrances) and then had a one year reunion in November 2005 which I didn’t attend. We had our 5 year one in 2009 which I went to the school part for drinks and canapes but didn’t go to the “after party” which was at a pub.

      I don’t really have an interest in what people I didn’t speak to are up to now. Most people I’ve found have the same story, studied law/marketing/jounalism at uni, went to Europe, are now engaged/married/have babies.

    • http://tamsinhowse.com/blog Tamsin Howse

      I went to my 5 year reunion, and I was one of the only people there who was engaged. Other people from my grade were engaged (and married for that matter) but they didn’t show up.

      It was fun, and I’ll definitely go to the 10 year reunion. I liked people from my class. I don’t feel like “if I wanted to see them I would” because my high school was about an hour away from where I grew up, and where I live now, and other people lives on the other side of Sydney, so it’s not like we can just pop over.

      I don’t feel like I have anything much to prove. Although, for my 5 year reunion I had put on a LOT of weight and I knew I looked a lot better than I had in high school (I still do), so I wore the kind of dress I could never have worn before (low cut) and got asked by about 4 people if I’d gotten breast implants. Hilarious!

      • Rose Russo

        I just snorted at the breast implant comment!! haha

    • Melissa Savage

      I went to a posh all girls private school in Sydney (the same one as Mia Freedman, which is why I ever bothered to look at Mamamia in the first place by the by; she left before I started but was well known about the place) and we have a formal old girls union that kept everyone up to date in the pre-Facebook era, whether they wanted to or not. Our 10 year reunion was all organised on Facebook and I was initially keen but got scared as the date approached. In the end I went with my friend (and bridesmaid) who is probably the only person I’m still close with. It turned out to be awesome: had a wonderful night chatting and drinking and picking up where we’d left off a decade earlier. It turns out all of us hated high school and all of us were hilariously embarrassing 18 year olds and now we could admit it and relax. It was surprisingly cathartic.

    • Bek M

      I’ve never been to any of my high school reunions, and I never intend to!
      I was picked on throughout my entire schooling life (in a country town the same kids in primary school are the same kids in high school) and I was always the odd one out. I liked learning and reading so that made me weird. I couldn’t wait to leave school and get to uni, it was there I found my social group. My one best friend I keep in touch with already. I have no intention of going back and giving the girls and boys reasons to sneer at me.