10 Year Reunion

Julie, ask and ye shall receive.

lisa-i want to hear more about your 10 year high school reunion-how did youfind it? did you think that people were the same or different? at mine, i thought a lot of people were the same except the hot guys from back then looked old now and balding, etc. jules

Surprisingly, I didn't have the same experience at all. I expected that to be true... or they would be bragging about what they've accomplished... or all the girls were pregnant... (Basically a scene out of Romy & Michelle's). Instead, I had a totally different experience. Here's the breakdown: out of a class of 314 or so, 170 alums showed up. About half were married/half not -- such that it wasn't a big deal one way or the other. Some brought their spouses/longterm sig. others/partners/etc., but not that many. Some of those who were married had kids, but most didn't. I could count on one hand the number of people that had either gained weight and/or were balding. One hand. So I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone looked the same but older & better. I found everyone to be really nice and more fun and happy. Kind of great to see everyone in a better light than the stressed out awkward kids that we all were in HS. When I asked what I do, I told them scientist or that "I'm in science". Seemed to be sufficient since I wasn't quite in the mood to discuss research. Only one person pressed me on it, to which I respectfully avoided the question. As for people changing since HS, the quiet ones came out of their shells; the popular ones tended to revert back to their own circle since some didn't really know too many in HS outside their immediate friends. It was funny that an ex-quiet kid came up to me and said "Y would talk to me in HS and he still won't talk to me now". Meanwhile, some of the popular kids told me that they felt really uncomfortable because they didn't know anyone. Hilarious.

I told Taryn it felt like my wedding because I made a lot of rounds to talk to everyone.... only this time I didn't know people very well. Everyone was in the same boat though. As long as you're friendly to everyone and acknowledge to yourself that you won't remember everyone and they won't remember you, I think you're golden. Besides, everyone was rather drunk. A few really drunk. Who could blame them? It's an awkward situation. In all, I was there for 6.5 hours. Got there at 8, left at 2:30 am.

My parents picked me up the next morning to take me to PA. I had some great stories, but my head was a sack of rocks and I was too tired to tell them.

In terms of aftermath, our local newspaper ran a story about our reunion (Julie & Taryn, you can read it here). And this email came out about a week later:

Hey (girl's name), It was really nice to meet you last week at the reunion. I hope I didn't come across as a cheese dick. I haven't meet anyone I've found really attractive in quite a while, and that has started to bother me. I know we didn't get much of a chance to talk, but you seem really cool. And I think you are very pretty. So, thats all I wanted to say. I'm glad we meet. -(boy's name)-------------

then this came about a half hour later:

I sent that to everyone didn't I.... How awkward, Oh well. -(boy's name)-----------------------

Classic.