High School Reunion

[PatrickRsGhost]

My 10-year high school reunion is coming up in October, and I'm having difficulty trying to decide whether or not I should go. For ten years, since I graduated, I had been leaning more and more towards not going, mainly for the fact that I was the one kid that everybody (or at least it seemed like everybody) picked on. To me, going back would mean reopening old wounds.

On the other hand, I would meet up with a few people that were nice to me, and I sort of considered friends. Plus, it would get me out of the house for at least one evening.

There are a few other factors that are making me lean towards not going. The event is being held at a reception hall in Atlanta. Traffic in Atlanta on a Saturday night is hell. It's $75 (US) per person. This is supposed to cover the meal, drinks, and booking fees. My main concern was that only alcoholic beverages were served, but when I called the reception hall, they said they carried non-alcoholic beverages like tea, coffee, Coke products, and water. Other than that, I'm looking forward to it.

Did anyone here attend their high school reunion, if it's been held yet? If it hasn't been held yet, will you attend when the time comes? Why or why not?

[Allium Cepa]

I dunno, I hope that all of my close friends that I would go back to see will still be close to me after I graduate. I think it would be fun to see people who were more of an acquaintance than friends. I guess I would weigh the amount of people who I liked and would want to see and the amount of jerks that were at my school. Then again, ten years is a fairly long time, some of them might have changed. I mean, when I look back I am nothing like I was ten years ago.

[J Spade]

I'm going to be there, and so will all of my friends. At least, that's how we're planning it.

[aleflamedyud]

I plan on being in a different country when my high-school reunion happens. Maybe I'll just send them a card telling them how great I'm doing and how little I miss them.

[Mr. Freeman]

I just graduated but the only way I'd even consider attending my high school reunion in 5/10/whatever years is if I were attending it to throw water balloons all over the place.

[Master Gunner]

I have yet to graduate, but people are already taking bets on what my status will be at the reunion (namely, whether or not I'll be in jail for various reasons). So I may place a bet through a proxy, then show up simply to collect my winnings. Of course, if I do show up, then they'll probably start taking bets on if I'll still not be in jail before the night is over. Let's just say that I have a...strange reputation at my school, and I don't know how I got it (honest!).

For you though, it would depend on a few factors. If it's relatively nearby, you can show up and then duck out early if you don't like it. Or just steal all the food. If it's farther away, depends how badly you want to get out of the house I guess.

[darren]

[pchoo]

My school was rather large; my graduating class was 1300 students or so. I feel like reunions are probably better for smaller schools (class size around a few hundred), because at my school the only people I knew well were my friends & friends of friends. Outside of that, there's like a 10% chance that I would be in more than 1 class with any random person over the course of high school and less for more than 2... so a reunion is rather silly because I have been/will be keeping in touch with friends, and the number of "acquaintances" that I remember/recognize is very small. Plus, I'm not sure if my school even does reunions. Too many people; dunno where they would host it... and I never saw/heard of one while I was there. That said, if there was one, I would probably go with a group of HS friends... collectively we'd probably remember enough people to make the trip worth it.

Also, going along with the "reunions are better for smaller schools" point, are high school reunions common/relevant anymore? I think they're becoming more outdated as % of college attendance rise... Feels like people who go to college are more likely to move further away from home to get a job and thus be less likely/able to return for a reunion (disclaimer: no proof or backing data whatsoever). It also seems like if you go to college, you're probably going to have more loyalty to those years & attend a college reunion than a high school one.

Did anyone here attend their high school reunion, if it's been held yet?

Anyone? I'm curious too...

[Jorpho]

It's $75 (US) per person.

It must have been some class if they can find so many people interested in attending a reunion that they can fill a reception hall. It must have really been some class if that fraction is also willing to pay $75 each.

The organizers of my reunion thought it would be better to keep the price low in order to encourage attendance. For some much more baffling reason (possibly because they could get a good deal on the place through some connections) it was decided to hold the event in a dance club, and as the evening wore on my voice grew increasingly hoarse from shouting to make myself heard. The dim lighting wasn't such a great idea either.

As it turns out, I had a hard time remembering most of the people I encountered anyway, and I felt rather neutral about them. But on the whole, I'm still glad that I went.

[1hitcombo]

I feel like I'm going to keep in touch with and make the effort to see people that I'm close with. College has already narrowed this group of people down significantly and even now I don't really care much to see a lot of people from my high school. Sure, it'd be nice but I'd rather spend a weekend of my working life and the cost of a plane ticket on an awesome adventure with good friends.

[Jorpho]

I might add that there are lots of people I probably would have never heard of again were it not for Facebook. (I probably would have never heard of the reunion at all.)

[Pa-Patch]

Mine won't be held for a good long while and I think it would be neat, but with basically everyone being on Facebook these days, it's not hard to keep in contact with everyone you want to keep in contact with. Kind of takes away the need to go to a reunion.

[Sungura]

I plan on being in a different country when my high-school reunion happens. Maybe I'll just send them a card telling them how great I'm doing and how little I miss them.

Sounds like a plan! I like that idea I didn't even go to my high school commencement. Why should I care about a place and people who cared none for me while I was there and just made my life difficult?

[MiB24601]

This is my reaction after my ten year high school reunion:
Anyone who you thought was going to be a jackass is a jackass.
Anyone who you worried was going to be standoffish missed you and makes an effort to say hi to you.
Anyone who you thought was going to be nice is nice.
Anyone who you forgot about is very nice but in an entirely forgettable way.

In conclusion, go to your reunion. You may think you are a mess but you have it together more than anyone else and everyone has fond memories of you.

[Coding]

My ten year reunion, assuming there is one planned, will be in two years. I feel old now.

Personally I am quite skeptical that I have things more together than anyone else, since I know what a number of them have done since high school. One well on the way to being a neuroscientist, another in the Secret Service, some others doctors and veterinarians. Of course, it does balance out a bit; I have also heard about some of the screw-ups, the do-nothings, and a couple of untimely deaths. Certainly I could have done worse. But when I think about actually seeing most of these people again, and remember what many of them thought back then about me and my probable future, and compare it to what I have actually turned out to be, I feel quite pathetic. If asked about what I had been doing, I would probably just be as vague and uninformative as possible, since I'm a poor liar and telling the truth straight out would be too embarrassing. And that is why I will not go to my high school reunion.

[Bakemaster]

Yeah, I also am pretty sure that apart perhaps from being married (oh and owning a house), I don't have much particularly tangibly more together than a lot of my old classmates. I guess specifically in the area of career. I started studying engineering pretty late and I know quite a few who have been working engineers for years now. When my five-year rolled around, I was going to go just for the hell of it, when I realized that I've been really good at keeping in touch with pretty much all the people I have any desire to still associate with, so there was no point.

To make matters worse, nearly all the cool teachers I remember from high school have retired now.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

when I think about actually seeing most of these people again, and remember what many of them thought back then about me and my probable future, and compare it to what I have actually turned out to be, I feel quite pathetic.

I'm not that far out yet, but I do get similar feelings. I got a message from a guy I knew in elementary school a couple weeks ago asking

You get rich yet!? …always figured you'd be the first out of (school) to be mad rich

Sad part is that if I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I'd either be rich or die trying. Only problem is that I didn't know what I wanted to do…

[Andromeda321]

I went to my 5 year reunion two years ago, it consisted of everyone agreeing to show up at a given bar one night. I still hear a lot about my old classmates though as my best friend from high school volunteered to keep track of alumnus notes- I went to an all-girls school with 40 in our graduating class, so the school still does that stuff.

The strangest thing for me at the 5 year reunion was realizing how darn nice and personable my classmates were who were there (none of the "popular girls" showed up else my opinion would've been different). What struck me is I couldn't think of a reason why I wouldn't be friends with these girls if we still lived in the same hometown today, but I was such a shy and awkward person in high school that I just didn't consider it.

So hey, it was good to go and realize how much I'd changed too I guess.

[Felstaff]

Behold! We already have a reunion thread.
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=25812

Merg'd