How do you react if you bump into someone from school?

[MariaLioness]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I've just turned 25. So yes I'm a lot younger than most of the posters here. I went to a selective mixed-sex private secondary school and stayed on at this very school for 6th form.

I'm making this thread because I've had a varied reaction when people from school see me these days. At uni a few people I went to school with went to my university. I even had a class with a few and we'd always greet each other in a friendly manner. I changed uni for master's and had someone purposely avoid me when they saw me.

Now occasionally I'll see people in central on public transport. I've had a former acquaintance come up to me, shake my hand and ask me how I'm doing. Someone a few years below me asked me for a job because they wanted to work in my industry.

I'm a friendly person and like saying hello. But I know not everyone is like that, so it doesn't bother me at all if someone gives me the cold shoulder.

Just wondering what experiences others have had.

You’re very young and it’s not long since you left school, so if you bumped into anyone I suppose you’d greet them. I wouldn’t recognise anyone except my closest friends, plus I’ve moved further away.

I left school in 1978 so it is a bit of a stretch.😂

When I was 25, I was a postgrad in another country. If I went to stay with my parents in my hometown at Christmas or something, I’m not sure I’d have recognised many former schoolmates. It was a deep recession and most of us emigrated. Plus I had no particularly warm memories of school.

82 so likewise 👍

Another perk of living abroad is that this never happens

In my 20s I bumped into someone in my year who wasn't really a friend and was one of the mean girls. She said "oh you're still short" and I replied "and you're still ginger" and walked on.

It comes across @MariaLioness you're still tied up in the 'I went to a selective school...I'm better than xyz

I said this to emphasise I didn't change schools during a levels. I didn't go GCSEs in a comprehensive and then go to college. I stayed at the same school.

This! Mostly cross the street and pretend I hadn’t seen them. School was not an enjoyable experience for me.

I'm honestly the most anti social person ever, plus social anxiety, so any kind of socialising I do has to be planned and I have to brace myself for it. So if I see ANYONE I know in a situation where my social battery just can't deal with it (i.e. anything that's a surprise) I will do my best to pretend I've not seen them.

If there's no way of doing that, I'll say hey how are you and make it as quick as possible!

To be fair though I had a horrendous time at school with bullying, probably caused the social anxiety, so there are very few people I'd be interested in talking to.

This has happened to me. I forgot their name so just did the hi, how are you questions.
Then after a few formalities, I finish off with well it was nice seeing you. Then walk off.
They may ask to swap numbers or arrange a coffee, I would say sure, then never call back.
I don’t like “catching up over coffee”. Not my thing.

I have no wish to bump into anyone from school - so should it happen I would do my best to avoid eye contact etc.

I would speak to anyone I knew from school, whether we got on then or not. I'm an adult, what happened at school is long past.

That's nothing to do with whether your school was either selective or private. My secondary school was neither, and virtually everyone who took A-levels stayed on to do them in the same school. I only remember 1 person switching to 6th form college.

In answer to your original question, it would depend who it was. These days I'd be enormously surprised (if I recognised them at all). At your age I would have been marginally less surprised - as at that point I lived several hundred miles and a sea crossing closer to the place than I do now, although still some distance away. And there's still a high probably I'd not have recognised them.

Had I done so I would have been delighted to see a couple of people, avoided a couple of others, and exchanged polite but brief pleasantries with most of the rest.

As it happens, I only ever accidentally ran into 1 former secondary school acquaintance. We've been living together for nearly 30 years.

Well my daughter now goes to my old school and a girl I went there with same school her son is in same class and well she did some weird things to me n some others so it was like chatting away all
rhjs happy my daughter got her son they are good mates and help each other in school she only 4 but yeah she then was like meet up for coffee play dates and I been like just making excuses but it like now just a nod from me lol for me it’s get kids and go xxx

I say ‘morning DH’.

Not helpful, sorry.

We’ve both bumped into our (shared) schoolmates over the years in quite random places and it’s generally been a pleasant catch up.

But then it wasn’t the kind of school where people thought they were making contacts that could be utilised in the future.

I’d still like to meet the kids that I didn’t get on with now that they are adults, to see what they did with their lives and how they’ve turned out. But maybe that’s because I’m fairly secure in having done a shit load of interesting things in the meantime.

I moved away from my small home town to university at 19 then straight onto London at 23. I have no friends from school, not even on social media. I’m 36 now and I doubt anyone would recognise me or me them.

Are you neurodivergent OP?

Never been tested, but people have thought so. My uni tutor thought so as well

My instinct when I see anyone I know out in the street or on the bus is to pretend I haven’t seen them - whether i like them or not. Can’t be doing with unexpected encounters.

I bumped into a girl from my class who was awful, a really nasty girl. Didn't specifically bully me but was generally nasty to everyone. We were at the hospital for a maternity scan. We locked eyes and just moved away from each other. We both needed extra growth scans and were on the same schedule so every 8 weeks we were sat in the same waiting room pretending we didnt know each other.

Considering I moved away after secondary it was a bit of a surprise.

I dont see people often but if I ever do I usually say hi, give a wave.

I always say hello and am friendly but a few times recently have had people come up to me and I didn't recognise them, one I still don't know who they were but they referenced the school we went to. So I must've known them at some point. So on that basis there must be people I've walked past without recognising, I'm not giving them the cold shoulder I just don't realise. My brother's wedding recently was full of examples, he stayed local didn't go to uni or move away so most if his close friends are people he's known since school. I was a few years above at the same school. No idea who most of them are without someone giving me a name or some hints

I do all the time when Im in my home town 🇮🇪 2-3 per year, sometimes see people I know on the plane over, I always say a big “hello how are you?” and sometimes a little catch up or even a hug, and I was not popular at school but we all seem to like catching up 🤷🏽‍♀️🤣

I bumped into an old school friend at a festival this summer and he didn't recognise me!! I was super offended 😆 I recognised him AND his daughter from facebook. To be fair we hadn't seen each other for 17 years but it was a slap in the face!