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 😄

Dump or not. You’ve came across as terribly judgemental. You’re no better than them and you have no idea how hard they’ve worked. For this reason alone I would swerve you at any type of reunion.

I have cousins who went off and did what you did and tbh they’re slightly pissed off that, despite doing “the right thing” they’re no further forward than the ones who stayed at home and didn’t go to Uni in a different city. (Infact didn’t go to Uni at all).

Opportunity comes to those who work hard for it, irrespective of location. Going to a different city to study is hardly that adventurous. It just sounds like you want to snigger at the ones who stayed “in the dump”.

I have never been to a school reunion but live very near where I grew up and in fact even closer to where my parents grew up. My paternal line goes back a hundred years or so in just a small radius of where I live. It makes me feel settled and at peace to be where my parents are from, especially as they are no longer alive. I have lived in other places (but nowhere further than London which is 50 miles away).

I left school 30 years ago but am still in pretty regular contact with about 6 people from my year at school, half of whom still live in the area, half of whom have moved away. We’ve all had a variety of experiences over the years between us. Travel and study; some interesting jobs and own businesses. Successes and failures, marriages, children, divorces and bereavements… We’re all living our lives with everything that entails!

I think the OP is getting a hard time. Growing in an affluent area and returning there after University and having the choice of a range of different professional opportunities is very different from her experience growing up in a deprived area where her classmates had limited opportunities and limited aspirations and she was the class swot who got away. Her experience will have been even more extreme than mine.

I grew up in a very remote rural area. It doesn't have a lot of deprivation but it's very traditional and I can count on my fingers how many people from my secondary school left and went to University. I was considered 'weird' for being an intelligent girl with ambitions beyond marrying a farmer and having children (My parents were much more outward looking than that). I didn't have many friends at school and people tried to bully me quite a bit. Most people are still working in the same NMW job for a small local firm that they did when they left school and their conversation is only about the other people who haven't left the area. These days I tend to only see family when I go home, I have nothing in common with most of my old classmates and wouldn't go to a reunion.

Does sound like you think your superior to them tbf. Don’t go if you don’t want to…..
i do find it funny that people who move away think they are better & have achieved more by doing so. I have stayed in my hometown all my life but still went to uni have a great job etc. most of my friends who moved away were quite miserable & now having kids in different countries with a limited support network and dealing with the stress this causes. Often had people look down their nose at me because I stayed but I am a lot happier than those I know living away

I come from a deprived background and decided not to leave because regardless of the lack of money, I had the best childhood, had a family who loved and would do anything for me.

I have done well for myself but only live 5 mins from my mum..... Growing up I was embarrassed about where I came from but now I don't care. Planned to leave as soon as I could but now I realise houses are cheaper here and literally there is no difference than living here than a few miles down the road. Rather pay less for a mortgage and have more money for holidays.

If anyone wanted to comment that I'm still in my same hometown, I don't care, I have a good life round the corner from my parents and appreciate Ive made the most of my time with the people who are important to me, that's the most important thing to me.

Hope you enjoy your school reunion, people will have made the choices that suited them best, it will give no indication of who is loving life or who isn't. I hope everyone you went to school with are living their best life.

I left school nearly 20 years ago and live in the same town. I moved away for uni and came back to be close to my family (why wouldn't I? They're great people!).
In my 20s, a large majority of the people I went to school with moved away but nearly all have moved back. Both the ones that moved and came back, and the ones who stayed, have lived very different but equally lovely sounding lives.
I am "friends" with nearly all of the people in my year group on social media and love seeing all of their achievements - single mums doing an amazing job with their kids, people creating and running their own businesses, doing amazing with work, people who've spent years working abroad, we've got artists selling their art and musicians playing big shows... I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how much all your classmates have achieved, regardless of where they have called home.

I moved away, lived abroad, had a child, moved three times, to different towns/cities, then moved back ‘home’ when my parents became elderly. I’ve changed and my life has evolved. No reason why classmates won’t have too.

I moved abroad at 18 then dotted around the UK until moving back to my home city at 28, never been happier than I am to be back and im never leaving again.

Moving away does not make you special, or mean you're winning. Soz.

You'd live me OP!

I still live in my childhood home which I inherited from my parents!

Literally been here since I was eighteen months old in 1984.

Shame on me!

Moat people wake up, take the kids to school, go to work, make dinner, go to gym, take kids to football etc. Regardless if you live in your small home village or moved away to a bigger city.

I went back to my home town after 25ish years a few years. The town was much nicer than I remembered, lots more trees and houses seemed smarter. I met up with a large group of old school friends/year group, most of whom were still living in the surrounding area/county. I live overseas now. It was lovely to catch up. Some hadn’t changed at all, others quite spectacularly. I found the bond with my close school friends was the same as ever, others we had grown completely apart. We all had a laugh and remembered the old times.

Go with a completely open mind, life takes us all in different paths whether locally or far.

But overall I’m not a fan of going ‘back’. It can bring out bad as well as good memories. For instance, I find going back to my uni city tough.

my DH and I went along to our school reunion last year. It was awful , the same clicky girls in the corner, still sniggering like they used to. The boys still trying to be crude and thinking they were funny. My DH and I met at primary and went through schools together. ( didn’t date till 14) of course the ones who took the p**s out of us all those years ago still did like they were 14 again. We both left early and will never go to one again

You might be surprised. Just because they’ve never left the area doesn’t mean you have achieved or experienced more than they have.

I don't know why people are uppity about staying in their "home town". Surely if you've moved, you've moved to someone else's home town?

I've lived in other countries and can't actually afford to live in my home town. Perhaps I should've stayed put

Some people I went to school with are definitely a very specific "type" of degenerate, but I don't think they would've improved if they'd moved to Leeds or spent a year in New Zealand.

i think OP is getting a hard time because she is looking down on people.

I did grow up in quite an affluent area - but I lived in the poorer part. I chose not to stay there because I felt people looked down in me. The majority of people at school went to university - it was just expected. But is was an all girl grammar school. You were expected to be a doctor / or if you didn’t get very high grades you were pushed into teaching! It was also expected that you would marry well.

I could go back and live in the ‘posh’ area now but I don’t want to.

Its not a lifestyle I want but I don’t judge those who chose to stay.

i am old enough now to understand people are wildly different - in every part of the world:

I avoid school reunions like the proverbial plague, but I can only think of a couple of girls I was at school with who still live in the city where we all grew up. Everyone else is scattered far and wide. We all went to university away from home, and most people have ended up in London (which is a long way from where I grew up). It never crossed my mind to go back 'home' after I went to university, despite having been very happy at home. I had just moved on, along with everyone else.

I'm always surprised by how many people on MN live close to their parents/siblings/cousins/grandparents etc. It does always strike me as a bit parochial.

Again - you honestly think that someone’s outlook on life is narrow becomes they choose to live in their hometown? Wow

to be honest I would argue that whoever makes such sweeping assumptions is actually the parochial one.

and I say this as someone who doesn’t live i their hometown. I left 25 years ago, and no longer have any family living there so rarely go back!!

I doubt everyone’s Lives are just the same as when they were in school just because they live in the same area - if this was the case for me I’d still be getting pissed in the local park!

you don’t have to go, it’s your choice and if you went to school pre social media and don’t keep in touch with your old schoolmates then your absence will likely go unnoticed by most. But who know’s you might enjoy yourself if you go and if not you can very easily leave

I moved back to live in the same village after uni and a couple of years living away after but I wouldn't say my life is just the same. I'm married, have two kids, have done a degree and masters and have a successful career in an area I always wanted to work in. My husband owns his own business and we're alot better off financially than the way I grew up. I don't think our lives would be significantly different if we'd stayed living the other side of the country except to have less time with family and less help with my kids.

You sound like you're already gearing up to think and act as though your life is better than the rest of your classmates.

Depends how you feel about your time there. Wild horses wouldn’t tempt me to my Grammar School reunion - there’s another one this summer🙄 It’s always the same former ‘It girls’ showboating. However I do meet up with some ‘girls’ from primary school and we always have a lovely time.

Again - you honestly think that someone’s outlook on life is narrow becomes they choose to live in their hometown? Wow

Yes, I honestly do. And I'm not sure it merits a "wow".

I just can't get my mind round someone not wanting to live in different places, see different things, meet different people. Which doesn't mean there's anything wrong with staying in touch with school friends or whatever, or going 'home' to visit/see family etc. I like going to see my family, but they and I have never felt the need to live in one another's pockets. One of my adult DC is currently living in America and obviously I miss them, but I'm mostly delighted that they're experiencing something different from our (lovely) part of the world, and meeting new friends rather than only their bubble of school/university friends.

I can only assume that you don't know what parochial actually means.

I understand people going off and seeing the world and experiencing new things THEN coming back once they decide to have children - if you’re fortunate enough to come from somewhere nice (I was from a shithole) 😂

However what I suppose I find incredibly boring is living in the same house/two streets away. Getting a low skilled job and basically giving up on attempting to achieve or experience anything new outside of that.

Each to their own but I would rather be old with stories to tell.

We moved to the UK whilst I was primary school age and it’s always been drilled into us that education matters and even if we started off poor our families had high aspirations for us.

@Schooldinners1 I went to an academically selective independent girls' school, and the expectation was that we would all go to Oxbridge (or a redbrick if desperate) and become lawyers/doctors/dentists/engineers etc. If you have those kinds of jobs, you mostly have to go to where the work takes you - you can't turn down a fantastic job because it's 200 miles from "home". So I'm coming at it from a very different angle, but the end result is the same!

Parochial means having a limited or narrow outlook.

you can of course meet new and different people if you stay in your home town - you will likely commute to work and meet lots of new people there, you might marry into a new family and meet lots of new people, you will likely travel and met people on holiday.

you can read extensively, research different cultures, enrich your life however you see fit.

my hometown is a medium sized , pretty, expensive seaside town within thirty minutes distance of a largish city - the majority of my friends who still live there work in the city, and often socialise in the city. Airlinks are good and they travel frequently - with work and for pleasure. When i socialise with them they bring new and different friends. They are not parochial - or perhaps you have a different dictionary to me.

perhaps your hometown was remote and miserable. Perhaps new people never move there and no one commutes outside the town limits - I am imagining one of those movies with the bubble dropped over a small remote town😂.

but not everyone’s experience is yours - some people have amazing cultured happy adventurous lives while still living in their home town.

that’s all I am arguing - not everyone is the same as you

And living in your hometown doesn’t mean a low skilled job!!! My fiends who live in our hometown include a barrister, a surgeon, a pharmacist and a few teachers. One is a tattoo artist - to her mother’s horror!!!!