high school reunions and why I think they're pointless

So my 10-year reunion for high school is coming up next year, and I just plain don't plan on going.

I know very few people these days who even feel the need for one. For one, I think they've become somewhat obsolete for people of my generation and younger because we have the internet. Facebook, Myspace, etc...people who want to get in touch and find each other just do. All you do is type in a person's name and search, and even if they've gotten married and changed their last name, you can usually find them. If not, I figure it's because they don't want to be found, and that's fine too.

I even found Facebook annoying when I first got it. I got numerous friend requests from people I barely even knew back then, let alone now. I guess it makes you look cool to have 300 + "friends" on your contact list...but to me I wanted only to keep in touch with people I know and like. So I made my profile more private after I figured out how to do that. But the people I knew back then who still matter to me now, as an adult, I am in touch with.

Another thing I find annoying about them is that they are usually arranged by the same people who were the popular and often too-stuck-up-to-talk -to-you types. The ones who were the overachievers, the ones everyone is supposed to "look up" to, even if they looked down upon everyone else. To me, high school seemed to be all about stereotypes. The jocks, the popular girls (lump all female athletes except for rugby girls, cheerleaders, poms, etc.), the nerds/geeks, the punk/skater/goth crowds, the kind of boring normal people, and then people like me who were outcasts but didn't care for labels too much...although I'm affectionately referred to as my family's little hippie child...heh. I suppose you could've called me that then and now, but I prefer to be just ME. I wasn't really part of one particular clique - I still to this day consider myself a "free agent" and I make friends with people as I see fit. But yeah, why would I want to go to some event that was put together by the former head cheerleader/prom queen, etc. who was too high and mighty to even look at me back in the day? Why should I subject myself to people who tried to humiliate me on a regular basis by making fun of me?

I'm not interested in most of the people I went to school with. My real friends from that era of life are still more or less in touch with me at least through the internet. I see a few of them on holidays when we're all in our hometown for family stuff (there seems to be an annual bar-crawl around that time and a lot of us townies make it to that event). For one, I don't feel the need to know anything about people from my past that I no longer associate with. Nor do I need the embarrassment of explaining my life situation over and over again to people who looked down on me in the first place (I've gone about things in a non-traditional manner to say the least. Made some mistakes and now I'm 26 and still getting my life together. But I'm doing it my way, positive about it, etc. I just know a lot of those people who look right down their nose at me). Especially after people have had a few drinks! No thank you!

I think that high school and reunions used to be seen as more of a necessity, because people used to do less exciting things with their lives in general. Prom, for instance, another useless tradition from times past that continues just because...Prom used to serve a purpose - to find a husband or wife! Because less people went on to do much more than just find some job and get married after high school. There were more factory jobs that men could enter into without a college degree, and college was seen as something only exceptionally smart or rich people did. Women could and did work, but most of them wanted to marry someone and have kids and be a homemaker. Thus, prom was designed to be romantic and "enchanting" because that's where you fell in love to build the foundation for your family. Now, we encourage our kids to do the opposite of that...delay marriage and family until after college or other job training. Find yourself, THEN settle down if you wish. So prom is more just another fun school dance to most people, but people still make a big deal out of it as if it actually matters, with girls having their parents spend hundreds on a formal dress that these girls are only going to wear once, and are only appropriate for a prom (you can't really wear a lot of these dresses to other events, and they only look age-appropriate on someone aged 18 or younger).

Ah, prom, another arbitrary event I chose not to participate in. Who are these people who insist that if you miss prom, you'll always regret it? Nearly a decade later, I have no regrets about "missing it." I actually snuck off to a regional Rainbow gathering for the weekend of prom, and had an amazing experience there, and those memories are actually really positive for me. My friends who did go to prom said that they played nothing but bad music, and that it was so boring everyone left to go get drunk...haha. Oh no, guess I really missed out!

I'll tell you who says stuff like, "you'll miss out and regret it forever" are the people who have an obsession with youth and childhood, and all the stuff you're "supposed" to experience at certain ages growing up. I've always danced to my own drum which hasn't made me popular, but I'm secure with myself.

I feel like high school reunions used to have a place, particularly before the internet came along. I'm sure there were tons of people who had lost touch with people they actually wanted to reconnect with, and there wasn't an easy way to track down your old friends back then. For my generation and younger, it's usually as easy as a search on Facebook or some other social networking site.

So that's my 2 cents on outmoded traditions people still go along with just because.

 

So you have never been to one, yet you're an expert on everyone who has.

So don't go. I think life on earth will somehow manage to continue.

 

Reunions aren't for everybody. Some people loved high school, some hated it, most people fall in between. If you believe you wouldn't enjoy being there then do yourself and everyone in attendance a favor and don't go. Let them enjoy re-connecting if that's what they're into.