I.T. to Teacher

The reunion was... interesting. Remember Grosse Point Blank?

"I should have brought my gun."
"What?"
"This should be fun."

About 40 students showed up out of a class of 105. I got to catch up with some old friends I was wanting to see. We were able to update contact info that was either lost or wrong. That's the good part of the reunion. The bad... some people I was looking forward to seeing weren't there. One person I was good friends with during and after high school was very awkward to talk to. I'm not sure why. Of course there were the people I had almost completely forgotten about who were really looking forward to seeing me. What do you say to those people? "Hey! How are you doing? I haven't thought about you in 10 years."

Many of the people were married. Most of them looked very similar to how they looked in high school. There were a few who had changed a lot. The old cliques were still present. The Jocks, the Churchies, the others-that-I-don't-have-names-for were all there. I was wondering whether or not we would have gotten past those by now. Apparently not. I'll admit I wasn't helping the situation. My friends and I didn't try to cross the boundaries because we didn't want to talk to those people in high school so why would I want to talk to them now? Now don't think the clique lines were uncrossable. There was plenty of interaction between them, but it was interesting to see that people still grouped up the same way they did in high school.

There were a good number of "accompaniers" there. By that I mean wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, even a partner. It was fun seeing what kind of people people married. For the most part, though, I think the accompaniers felt a little left out. It was definitely a good call for my wife to not come. After a while you could see groups of these accompaniers talking with each other while the reunioner was off talking with friends. One girl put it very well. She said she wouldn't have dreamed of coming without her husband because he is her security blanket, but after she got warmed up a bit she didn't need him anymore. I guess he got tossed into the pile of other security blankets that came.

I was hoping to see some train wrecks, but there were none. My guess is the alcohol was too expensive ($8.50 for one gin and tonic!). Some people had definitely had a few, but no one had a few too many.

Overall I'd say I had fun. I'm glad I got to reconnect with some of my old friends, and hopefully we'll stay in touch this time, but it wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be.