Something Missing?
 

Does everyone at one time in their life search out classmates after 20-30-40 years? It must be profitable several websites charge for info. I loved elementary school, I hated high school, college was fine but no interaction with people really, and I was a loner. Do any of you do this and why? Why am I doing this? :eyebrow:

I did it at first with facebook. After reconnecting with a bunch of different people, I realized we didn't have any shared experiences any more, and there was no reason to stay in touch. Nostalgia isn't enough of a connection.

My favorite exchange from The Big Chill

I did the same as glatt. Then we created a facebook group for our class as we are having a reunion soon. That seems like a better plan to me.

I must admit though, that a couple years ago after a traumatic event in my life that a few old friends from HS showed up at some fundraisers and we've reconnected.
We hang out on a regular basis and talk frequently.

I have realized that there are not that many people that I would want to connect with. Especially not after they've spent (mumblemumble) years screwing up their lives.

Doesn't everyone secretly want to have a better life than those that may not have treated them so nicely back then? Don't they want that haughty high school cheerleader to be a fat cow? Don't they want that jock to be bald and fat?

We had our 20th HS reunion a couple of years ago, and fb was a big part of the process for finding people. I've been in regular contact with the group of girls I hung out with in HS ever since, and I chat with some of the fellas from time to time although it's mainly the girls. In fact, we're having a get together in a couple of weeks for one of the girls who now lives in Nigeria but is coming back for a visit. We usually try to catch up every few months now and keep up with each others lives. It's actually really nice because most of these girls have seen me at my worst, as I have them, so we know what we're getting, and really, no one has changed that much from HS. They're still the same people with different bits filling in their lives. It's nice.

I'm having a catch up with a girl from HS on the 15th who I was not that close to at HS, but we've been keeping in touch via FB since the reunion. I'm looking forward to it. She was always nice at school, but just not in the group I hung around with mostly.

I say go for it. Nothing ventured nothing gained. You might just re-establish old friendships and find they still have great value in your life. If not, you can laugh at the fat cheerleaders instead. ;)

Nostalgia ain't quite like it used to be.

I hung out with a good number of people in HS but they didn't really know ME as I didn't really know me.

So - now they really, really don't know 'me'

I was achingly self-conscious, very shy, with crippling depression that I self-treated with smokes, drinks, drugs and a thick layer of black eyeliner.

From what I have managed to gather from the cheerleader/jock crowd is that they turned out exactly as I knew they would: wealthy, educated, great jobs, great homes, great spouses, super kids, and a summer home in the Hamptons. No surprises anywhere, really.

I've had a couple of chances to meet up with high school peers and just didn't. I made it to my 10 year reunion, but skipped the 20th and 25th. The attempts I made at trying to connect on facebook didn't succeed. I haven't really analyzed it much. And now since I'm practically 50 there doesn't seem much point in it. I may still try to make it to my 30th reunion. We'll see. I'm not all that excited about sharing life that never happened for me.

I enjoyed high school and elementary the best. I was a straight A student in middle school. Oddly, I don't remember much of it, except for running from class to class.

The people from elementary I still know and run into once in a while.

I have been in email contact with someone who was my friend when I was 7-9 years old. We had a joint diary that we would write in every day, she on one page I on the other. She told me she kept that all these years. She is sending me a copy. I remember the diary but have no clue what I wrote in it. :)

I have never been to any of my HS reunions.

That's awesome! That will be fun to read.

4 of my current close friends are freinds from high school.

Good point spexx. My closest friends are those I've had since HS. We've been that way since grade school. We still get together at least 2x a year to play poker.

Got my 25th HS reunion invitation a few weeks ago.

$35/person, cash bar, to hang out with people who wouldn't speak to me in HS. Yeah, right.:right:

I know, right? pfft--you got that right here!

that will be $35 please.

No. It is a waste of time and energy. No one is the same as you remember them.

At my 20th reunion, I saw some old friends and talked a couple of times but never reconnected. My 30th reunion, I was deployed. I recently reconnected with with a friend from the 1st grade till we were college room mates. He is a producer with Turner Classic Movies and even starred in the series TCM Roughcut. He was good friends with Tony Curtis and still is with Nicholas Cage. He even has an Emmy nomination. It is nice to talk to him, but our lives are vastly different.

To tell the truth, I'm jealous and this only reinforced my feelings that I'm pretty much of a failure. Sigh, just being honest

um, uh-huh. no failure. just totally different. success is relative.

I don't search them out, and we don't keep up on HS reunions, but when we HAVE had them we've had a complete blast. Fuck the people who don't want to come and have a good time. I got along with most everyone in my class, and at reunions I still see the faces of so long ago and I remember the times we've had...times that certainly shaped who I am...for good or bad.

Those who snort and sniff about "I didn't like them then why should I go now" are in the same boat they were in back then for the same reason: bad social skills and giant shoulder chips. :lol: I mean, my GAWD, get over it already. I was comfy with the jocks and the nerds and the brains and the punkass punks! :)

Or take your ball and go home. I'll just sit here and drink beer with Shelley and right-hook Jay when he flips my bra strap and wait for someone to ask me what our HS song was, knowing I'd remember.

I don't keep in touch with anyone...but I sure do like to see them now and again.

Bitter lives...I don't get it.

Not necessarily bitter, infi, some of us are just disinterested.
When I've bumped into a few school chums by chance with whom I've not kept in touch it has swiftly become apparent why we did not keep in touch - nothing in common.
I don't think I went to any school reunions - or if I did it was within a very few years of leaving school. I wouldn't go to one now, but I am going to a schools' orchestra reunion soon.
I have reconnected with an old school friend on FB and we are playing word games. This is fun, and it'd be nice to have a beer/wine together at some point, I think. We may meet at the orchestra thing.

Oh, and Sarge! Some of the people who went to my high school are now HOllywood, Oscar winning actors etc. That doesn't make me a failure any more than your old chum's career makes you one. Monster is right - our paths are different.

Oh well, I don't expect to reconnect and go swimming and sailing with them. Hanging out for a few hours, seeing what they've been up to, swapping old stories: none of these things require having everything in common.

I just find people from the past interesting, whether they share my love of killing hobos or if they've moved on to family and children, or spent 20 years in prison, or are the Top Dawg of Millionaires, Inc. I'm not planning to marry them all.

I am forever pursued in FB chat by a guy from school who remembers me very fondly... and I do not remember him AT ALL. I want to be nice to the guy but it's getting weird.

But I have also recently friended a guy from school I remember fondly, and he hardly remembers me at all. So this is just what 30 years of time will do.

It all seemed so important at the time...