School reunion, everyone’s life is just the same

[Schooldinners1]

Was wondering how others found seeing their old classmates and going back to your old town.

The majority of people have stayed living in the same area, not far from their parents and haven’t really ventured anywhere outside of it.

I am wondering how it’ll go. I’m one of the few people who went to uni in a totally new city hundreds of miles away and never moved back!

It will be interesting. It’s going to be at the community hall I had my primary school discos in 😄

Many of my school friends stayed in the same area. Those I was friends with most, I still talk to even though I haven't seen them for decades!

I put a post up on fb once when I was holidaying in Penrith to see if anyone fancied a pint and a guy I went to senior school met up with me - it was bloody lovely!

We had a reunion arranged but covid fd it all up. Hopefully we'll get another one sorted in 2024.

I'm also in touch with my closest friends from uni.

I rarely meet real friends at work, but fb helps me keep in touch with them too.

Go see what they're up to, you might like it, but keep an open mind. In some ways I wish I'd stayed in Manchester - it was a great city when I lived there, but it's banging now!!!

I went to mine for our ten year reunion in the mid 2000s

Eugh.

I don't know why I bothered. I hated school and was bullied, and my school was so bad I've told people tidbits of things and been told I should write a book as it makes Grange Hill look well adjusted

The same bastard girls were just bastard women, with new "improved" lips. Still up themselves.

I only went as my best friend from school wanted me to come with her and I fancied an excuse to visit my old hometown for the weekend.

Never have I ever been happier to get on a train and leave a place.

None of the teachers invited showed up. Not one. It was still nerds v popular kids but with grown adults.

Everyone was slightly fatter.

Honestly, unless you loved school I would avoid it.

Just realising from this thread that, if anything, I'm homesick and feel wistful about the fact that I've been gone from my hometown for so long.

I envy my friends still there with parents still alive and a family home they grew up in.

They have definitely changed, of course they have, they have matured as adults. But with the benefit of being long established in the community.

I've lived in a few countries very happily and love where I live now, but there's something wonderful about home and I can see only too well why my peers built their lives there.

I ran into a woman I was at school with five or so years ago. I remembered her so it was lovely to catch up, she kept telling me about people I apparently was at school with though. I had no idea who they were. It went on and on, endless names I had no recollection of. So if a reunion was arranged I probably wouldn't go. Why travel 5 hours to stand in a room worrying about how terrible my memory is?

The same bastard girls were just bastard women, with new "improved" lips.

Sorry that genuinely made me lol

I think that based on moving back to home area in my 30s you will find:
Those who didn't go to Uni are much better off , own much better houses and have a much more chilled and relaxed life.

I’m sure some vivid memories will come back once I see them all again 😂😂😂 we were quite naughty!

I went to one about 10 years ago in a country pub. It was great. A bunch of women, some of whom had been relatively popular, others not at all. We all just wanted to have fun.

Oh and I am the one, who moved away and lived in a few different countries etc.

Is it possible you were invited to the wrong year group?

I think school reunions are perfect for people who had low status at school and high status after school. Everyone else, not so much.

Oh they will all be so in awe, you being a trailblazer and all that 🙄

i didn’t go to mine. I stay in contact with a few friends - see them every few months and we have an active WhatsApp group.

i knew it would be every sizing each other up - posh girls school - who had married week, who had put on weight etc etc.

we don’t have the snobby attitude you do about who has moved away and who has stayed. Some of the most successful women still live in our home town. I dont - I moved to a nearby city. Doesn’t make me more adventurous or better!!

That's depressing that so many people have stayed in their home town. Of all my friends, I'd say 90% of them have moved away, some several times.

I'm glad it did 😂

I've lived all over the world but settled 12 miles from home )in my 50s) went to a reunion just before lockdown. Was interesting. The popular and bitchy girls from school didn't really mix, most of them married to their high school boyfriends and had kids really early. It was like a bloody rom com! One of them said 'ah never mind' when I said I wasn't married 🤣. My old friends and various others were all great and it was lovely.

My classmates were already scattered worldwide when I was there, with classmates from places like Papua New Guinea, Malawi, Jamaica, Germany because of the boarding facilities. Even the day girls came from a mixture of the immediate area (like me) and up to about a 30 mile radius.
I have been to a couple of reunions and most of us haven't see each other since we left school in the 80s unless we were in a friendship group.

The lovely people were still lovely, the bitches still bitches.

Gosh I would have to give you a swerve. So you went to Uni and moved out of town? 👏 👏. What else have you done that’s remotely even interesting?

I stayed in my home town and left school at 16 having gone straight into the workplace. 100 percent mortgage on a flat at 18, 3 kids by the age of 26, married at 27.

Graduated at 28 with an OU degree, a masters at 29. Sold my flat for a big profit and bought a lovely home at 30. I then completed my clinical doctorate in psychology and qualified last year at aged 34. I’ve ticked a lot of boxes despite staying in my home town, having kids young and taking a route that wasn’t that traditional. Personally I think it’s you that sounds a little beige 😉.

Why is it depressing to stay near your friends and family?
Thats such a narrow minded view.

Have you moved away @Schooldinners1 ?

How do you know their lives are exactly the same given you haven’t seen them since school?

What are implying? That you're more worldly because you moved away? Same shit, different location.

I hate that snobbery, assuming they are somehow less independent than you just because you chose to settle elsewhere. Honestly, it makes zero difference.

Oh wow, that's amazing! They must be so worldly 🙄

I used to be a bit of a snob about people staying their hometown, because i hated mine, then I made friends with women who, with 20 years between them, all stayed/ came back to their home town. And I was actually quite jealous: parents, other relatives on tap; never on your own in the pub; always knowing what's going on; knowing who all the parents of the kids are.

Very similar to me. I wish I'd stayed at home sometimes. Living away is never the same as having that established community and support network. We're dying to move back!