Have you ever been to a school reunion? What was it like?

[JuniperJuly]

Lots of the people I went to school with still live in the area we grew up in and their children go to the same school we did. Lots are getting to school leaving age so the talk of a year reuinion has ramped up and it looks like it is going to happen November time.

I have zero intention of going and I wont be missed. I've only kept in touch with 2 people from school (which is how I know about it). The talk did make me wonder where a couple of people ended up but a quick FB stalk told me all I needed to know.

Anyway, as the title. Have you ever been to a school reunion? What was it like? Were the popular girls still the same? Were there any surprises?

A shock for me on FB was how many people have ended up together! Also, the HUGE success of one of people you'd have least expected (but good for him!). But sadly, it seems like a few of the popular people peaked at high school.

Yes It was 21 years ago after 18 years since we left school

It was fun actually. Popular girl was just like the rest of us. 2 of the popular guys had not had good lives so far and werre honest about it. Geek guy was having a great life. I recall several not recognising me (to be fair I had changed a lot) i got several apologies for bullying and 1 guy sharing how bad he felt now as his child was being bullied.

We did a walk around at the school a teacher who was meant to do the ealk around got a colleague to do so due to a family emergency and that teacher used to have us. We went for a beer with him after.

I recall guys proudly. Showing us photos of their children. Dd3 who was a baby was passed around many willing arms and charmed everyone. It was a good day.

Therr has been talk of another but nothing has come to it.

I have many of them on facebook but I only keep in touch with 1. My best friend since age 8 still now in mid 50s and we live in different countries.

Edited spelling

Once, when the school was closing, mostly to see if my memories were off and it had actually been better than I thought.

It wasn’t.

I went to a school reunion, 27 years after leaving.

It was interesting. A few people were being tediously competitive but most were just interested in how people turned out. Of the 'class stars' three have become extraordinarily successful in their fields. Other class stars seemed to burn brightest at uni and then not really do much.
None of the school parings stayed together and almost all of us have left the area which is a bit sad.
More reassuring, quite a few of the lower-middle of the class have done well and most seem happy.

That's interesting about bullying. When I was at college, I bumped into a boy who was really awful to me at school. He apologised but it was more about making himself feel better than me iyswim? I was disgusted by myself though because he still had so much power over me eg I couldn't bring myself to tell him to move when he sat next to me on the bus. Him doing that bought bought all back and was somehow much worse than what he did at school.

I went to one, maybe ten years ago, so we were all late 30s, early 40s ish. I wasn’t really bothered about going; my best friend talked me into it because she wanted to catch up with everyone but didn’t want to go by herself. And it was quite nice actually. It was in a large pub just down the road from the school. A couple of the popular girls sat on a sofa, still thinking they were too cool to talk to anyone, but I don’t think anyone missed them. Several of the other popular girls were completely normal and down to earth. Pretty much everyone was saying hello and having a quick chat, even if they hadn’t been particularly friendly at school. Lots of people didn’t go, which was a shame, as I’d have liked to have said hi to them, but there were enough that it was nice. I left feeling that I was glad I went, but that I had already stayed in touch with the two people I really wanted to stay in touch with and I had no real desire to go to another one. Maybe in another ten years.

Hell would freeze over before I went to a high school reunion!

At the risk of derailing, can I ask what 'popular' girls/boys means in this context?

I can think of kids at school who were 'cool' and while they obviously did had a posse of friends I would say the nerdy and middle-of-the-road kids had just as many. And I would not have wanted to be in their friendship orbit particularly, even the ones who were not bullies.

Is it just a way of describing social dominance, i.e. these are the alphas of the boys or girls in that school and everyone accepts that hierarchy or suffers the social consequences? This is how I remember it.

Or is it actually 'popularity', but we are talking specifically with the opposite sex?

(Can you tell I was strictly 'gamma' in the social hierarchy? 😂)

Yes, the alphas.
"Popular" wasnt the right word to use.

In my year most of the alphas were in my class (yay). They dominated everything eg they decided what was and wasnt fashionable, who did/did not fit in etc. If there were fun activities, they were always involved and so on.

They werent necessarily unpleasant, or always surrounded by friends (which is why popular was the wrong word).

One of the boys I was friends with in primary school became an alpha at high school and was a bully to some people so I didnt have much to do with him. He started sniffing aerosols etc at school and it looks like his life went out of control. Such a shame because under all his bravado and noise, I really still believe there is (was?) a good person there.

Another alpha male has had a family with someone he wouldnt even have acknowledged at school which made me laugh.

The main alpha female looks to not be living the life I would have expected. Obviously I dont wish ill of her and I really hope she's happy but she definitely seems to have peaked at high school.

I think I fall into "could have excelled but settled into a average life".

I am really, really surprised at the small life so many of them seem to have lived eg never moving away, having kids with people they went to school with etc. I know there isnt anything wrong with any of that but it seems so limited.

I was around 25 when I went to one. I was lucky that one of my oldest friends from playgroup was there, so I knew I'd at least have someone to talk to. Actually spent most of the evening in easy conversation with two of the 'boys'. One I didn't really speak to at school, the other I actually played with a lot in infants school, but didn't have much to do with after that.

The main thing I remember is that one of the brightest girls had married someone in our year, and sadly she was high on drugs and her husband (nice chap) had to spend the evening calming her down.

Yes, 45 years after leaving. It was purgatory. It had a large number of military kids so most kids were transient. My ‘best friend’ for the 3 years I was there virtually ignored me after a brief ‘hi’ and most others couldn’t remember me.

I wasn’t expecting a fond reunion but I was quite hurt. But there we go, wouldn’t ever go to another one, but the life of a military child can be weird.

Our was interesting in that People’s lives didn’t turn out the way one might of fantasised about or imagined.
Or maybe they turned out exactly how those people planned them, but not how other others might have perceived or imagined.
Mostly it appears people didn’t reach their potential, which was sad

I think there is a difference in an apology a few years after where the hurt is still being healed and what I got 18 years on with guys reflecting on their own behaviour and feeling what I perceived as genuine remorse.

I do not think I could have stomached an apology 3-5 years after leaving school

I would, but I'm still in touch with quite a few people from school - was discussing our next catch up with some of them earlier this evening. (We're on out 50s now.)

We reckon between all of us (girls - singke sex school,) we could probably contact pretty much all of our year, with the people we are in contact with on FB or LinkedIn, though we've not actually tried. We also know quite a few of the boys - small town, only one (pair of) secondaries. And though I now live 90 minutes away, a few weeks ago, I met one of them in my local supermarket (he's also moved up this way.)

Because I am still in touch with quite a few, and hear of more, I think a reunion would be fine, because there wouldn't be many shocks.

Mind you, a couple of years before covid, I went back to my junior school, and a couple of the teachers asked how my parents were, so I had to inform them they were both dead. They reminisced about my parents' parties. "Yes, they were proper grown-up parties!" I decided not to ask for a full explanation of what that meant... (At the time, it did nothing good for my street cred to have half our teachers in my parents' social circle.)

Gosh no, and never will!

I went to one last year. I don't live in the same area, and was persuaded to go along by a friend who does. It was interesting to see both who I could still remember and recognise, and who remembered things about me too.
I liked school, was oblivious to popularity contests, and had no interest in being cool, not that I'd have known how. So I didn't have any particular baggage to take along. It was an interesting enough evening, and I wouldn't rule out going to another. But I absolutely wouldn't go without a friend from the same school.

Absolutely not.
To he honest I have had a few bad dreams about it over the years.

And this is why I will never go to one! My nice small life being judged.

I wasn't one of the popular girls, I don't have a career or a big house, none of that matters, we have a reunion every 10 years and i wouldn't miss it for anything, we drink, we dance, we talk about nothing, it's great fun!

We did, 20 years after those that stayed in the 6th form, left school.

It was lovely. Meeting people as adults and catching up with their loves now.
People came from all over the country (and one from abroad).
Many of us have met up every 3 years or so since then, over the last 20 odd years. We have become friends as the adults we are now, not related to who was more friendly with who when we were 11 - 18.

I went to one when I was 35. It wasn't that good. I hadn't actually seen anyone for at least 15 years and none of the people I'd been really close with at school were there, apart from one, but we didn't really click any more. It was held in our old home town, which I had moved away from years before, whilst a lot of them had stayed there and remained friends. They all got drunk and loud, but I wasn't drinking at all because I had a newborn baby and was breast feeding and driving. I couldn't stay very long.
I'd love to go to another one though. I've got more contacts and know how to get in touch with more people now because of Facebook, which was pretty new at the time of the first reunion. Another 17 years has passed since the first one.