Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

to wonder if any of you have gone to a school reunion

30 replies

atthewelles · 05/01/2013 16:57

Humming and hawing about an upcoming one. Friend trying to persuade me to go but I'm not sure if it will turn into some kind of competitive 'who's done the best since we left school' kind of thing, or if it will just be a fun night of reminiscing and feeling like a teenager again.

OP posts:

girlynut · 05/01/2013 17:34

Yes, went to one last summer. About 30 girls attended and we'd just hired a room in a bar. Someone made a cake with the school motto.

Although it's been 20 years, we all got on really well. Some people had done really well for themselves, others admitted to struggling. Some had adult children, some were TTC. Some were single and some were on DH number 3! But the main topic of conversation was reminiscing about various school trips and teachers and speculating on what had happened to other girls who weren't there.

We all admitted that we were a bit scared about going and worried that we wouldn't recognise each other / be remembered. I almost turned back at the bar door as I was so nervous! But other than a "Psst! Who on earth is that?!"..."Oh yes...her!" moment, nobody had changed much and we all had a lovely time.

You should go. Otherwise you'll always wonder what you missed out on.

SauvignonBlanche · 05/01/2013 17:35

I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

CMOTDibbler · 05/01/2013 17:37

I'd rather hack limbs off. Theres a reason I stopped contact with just about everyone I was at school with as soon as I left there

Sparklingbrook · 05/01/2013 17:37

I'm with Sauvignon. No ta.

Bobyan · 05/01/2013 17:38

I've kept in contact with the people from school I liked, but I can't see a reason for meeting up with the rest!

Sparklingbrook · 05/01/2013 17:38

Exactly CMOT, they were a hateful bunch.

everlong · 05/01/2013 17:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NinaHeart · 05/01/2013 17:41

I went to one the year we all turned 40. The people I liked, I still liked, The ones that were odious little twallocks were now odious big twallocks.

5Foot5 · 05/01/2013 17:42

IME it depends how old you all are.

Just before DH and I married he got invited to a 10 year reunion and I went as partners were also invited. It was awful. Not just for me because I knew hardly anyone but DH said so himself. At that stage (everyone late 20s)everyone was being ultra-competitive and bragging about careers, cars etc.
Also DH said he had kept in touch with the people he really liked and when he met up again weith the others he remembered why he hadn't kept in touch IYSWIM.

However, some time ago I went to a 25 years reunion at my school. That turned out to be quite nice actually because as 40-somethings everyone had mellowed a bit. I think by that age nearly everyone has had a few setbacks and career twists and turns and doses of real life so that noone was trying to show off but it was genuinely interesting to see what people were doing now.

LadyBeagleEyes · 05/01/2013 17:43

I hated school and the mean girls who made much of my life a misery.
It's the popular or successful ones that will go.
I couldn't think of anything worse.

QuietNinjaTardis · 05/01/2013 17:43

Couldn't imagine anything worse. I'm still in touch with the friends I made at school. Anyone else either bullied me or was Indifferent to me (and I to them) so no way would I want to meet up and be nice to people I don't care for in the first place.

Sparklingbrook · 05/01/2013 17:45

It's been twenty something years do you have to wear name badges? I wouldn't recognise anyone.

RatherBeACyborg · 05/01/2013 17:46

Actually I would. Apart from the few you always get, most people in my year were ok. It was a fairly small school in a small town and most of us lived near/went to the same primary etc.

My two oldest friends I've known since three and another since I was twelve. I've actually moved back after years away and have bumped inti people I knew but wasn't necessarily friends with and it's been nice.

wonkylegs · 05/01/2013 17:47

I went to a 10 yr reunion when I was 26 (school most people left at 16 due to no hope .6th form )
Although I was dead nervous it was great. We had it in a local pub (one of the girls in my years family's) and it was weird but fun. Admittedly I went because I knew that I was in a good position & I wanted to be nosy as to how everybody else got on. Not many went on to do alevels and even fewer to uni and a lot had stayed in touch as they still lived in local town. One or two of us had strayed further a field. I was quite recognisable as apart from boobs (late blossomer) I look almost exactly the same (even now) but some especially the blokes looked very different (no hair and a lot less skinny). It was also sad as we found out who had died (through accidents and a suicide).
It was interesting, funny and not bad for one night and you get to go home afterwards and never see them again (if you so wish)

Leeds2 · 05/01/2013 17:47

Absolutely not, although I would like to know what everyone else ended up doing with their lives!

OH went to his 25 year one. Said he wouldn't go to another!

My friend went to one recently (20 years?), and has ended up having monthly coffee mornings/lunches with about six women that she hadn't met up with since leaving school. She is really happy that she went.

Adversecamber · 05/01/2013 17:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mrscumberbatch · 05/01/2013 17:51

Would never go to a school reunion but held a reunion of sorts at my house.

Realised that I had about 20 people on FB who I liked but had not really kept in touch with since school and so we all met up and had drinks and got rowdy!

It was great fun, we all enjoy each others company but just aren't that close. It's nice to know that once in a blue moon we can all get together and it's not awkward. Likewise it doesn't interfere with our current lives/friends etc

NUFC69 · 05/01/2013 17:52

I have kept in touch with some people from my school - then four years ago someone suggested that we all had a reunion. If I tell you that I left school in 1963 you will see that it was a long time ago. We met in a hotel, had lunch and a surprise guest - our form teacher from all those years ago. Our class had been her first post after leaving teacher training college and, tbh, she wasn't that much older than us. It was a really excellent occasion; I think we all enjoyed ourselves and there was so much to talk about.

However, I think that probably if we had met after ten or twenty years it probably wouldn't have been such a successful event as I do think people tend to be very competitive.

Goodadvice1980 · 05/01/2013 17:53

I've been to a couple of reunions and they were really good!

The girls who were uber bitches and bullies at school were still pretty vile, but it didn't spoil any else's fun!

And I was pleased at how good I looked compared to some of my old "friends" who were not always so nice to me ... .

GregBishopsBottomBitch · 05/01/2013 17:54

Never went to the official one, the ones that didnt go had a night out and got pissed.

CloudsAndTrees · 05/01/2013 17:55

I went to one a couple of years ago. I had a great time, and a few of us who had lost touch after school have now kept in touch and have been on a few weekend get togethers since. It doesn't happen often though as we all live quite far apart now.

I didn't find that there was any competitiveness or anything horrible at all about it, which was surprising as we were from an all girls school and we all used to be a bunch of complete bitches to each other. It was nice to see that everyone had turned out to be lovely in the end!

YuleBritannia · 05/01/2013 17:59

It's worth going them. I went to a few in the 1980s for the Mitcham Grammar Schools. They had been organised (as usual) by the same people who eventually had to give up the task. The reunions were well worth going to because it wasn't just the girls (and boys from the other school) but several of our mistresses were there as well who actually remembered some of us. Unfortunately, they fell into no more because (a) we all lived so far apart and (b) the schools were closed by the Labour Party. BRING GRAMMAR SCHOOLS BACK.

I was already in touch wth my own little 'gang' of six but more came into my sphere once I had caught up with them again at those dos.

YuleBritannia · 05/01/2013 17:59

*going to them

TandB · 05/01/2013 18:01

I've been to one. It was fairly predictable. The nice people were still nice and the twatty people were still twatty.

I went off about halfway through with one of my best friends from school and we got happily drunk together and cackled about the massive competitive bragging.

There were a couple of entertaining developments. Like the girl who had been a huge hanger-on to the bitchy cool crowd, and who was all about wearing the right clothes, seeing the right boys and listening to the right music. Fifteen years on and she had gone all earth-mother and had taken up meditation, and spent the reunion telling all of us what we were doing wrong with our materialistic and immoral lives.

And then there was the very gothy, sneery, alternative type who couldn't have been more mainstream if she had tried - all boden-clad and sensible-shoe-wearing.

FellowshipOfFineFellows · 05/01/2013 18:09

I organised mine about 3 years ago

Was very drunken.

I was bullied quite badly at school, but thought "fuck it" and invited my whole year. The few who turned up who were tits at school fell over themselves to apologise now they are adults. One girl was still a complete bitch so I let her have it. In front of everyone, just as she did to me at school. Felt amazing.

She left rather sharpish after that.

It was quite amazing how quickly most of us reverted back to the groups we were in at school. Then I let the Queen of Bitchiness have it and everyone mingled rather nicely

Flip

1 2