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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to wimp out of a school reunion?

24 replies

jumpjockey · 28/09/2009 20:14

Arranged about 2 months ago via facebook, I said I'd hope to make it but couldn't yet be sure. Plenty of people were invited but the ones who have signed up are people I never really talked to much at school (they were much cooler and I was one of the geeky gang ). It's a dinner and clubbing type of do, which could be great in the right company, but of 25 people going only 2 are ones I'd really like to catch up with. I don't really fancy an hour and a half's drive to my home town, coughing up for a hotel and leaving dh and dd stuck there while I go out (she's still bfing and I've never had any luck expressing).

But then again, it would be a chance to get out and have a bit of a booze-up and maybe make new friends with people who I never had a chance to in the past. Am I just making excuses and ought to be a bit braver?!

OP posts:

mrsruffallo · 28/09/2009 20:16

Do you want to go?
Personally, a school reunion would my idea of hell.
Do you really need new friends?

BrokenBananaTantrum · 28/09/2009 20:19

No need for you to go at all. Don't feel bad about not going. Might be OK but uts not owrht the hassle of hotel etc imo.

pinkteddy · 28/09/2009 20:21

I think you will probably have a great time once you get there. I was dreading ours but actually had a really good night. A friend of mine nearly backed out of hers but also really enjoyed it in the end. Can you stay with friends or family to keep cost down?

Having said that don't put pressure on yourself, if you don't want to go don't!

CrackWhoretoPaulDacre · 28/09/2009 20:21

YANBU - was thankful to be having an EMCS instead

GeekIsGood · 28/09/2009 20:26

Go if you think you might enjoy it but YANBU not to go, I know there's no way I would go to my school reunion if they ever organised one.

If you didn't make friends with them at school why should you need to now? There must have been a reason for it.

Original poster

jumpjockey · 28/09/2009 20:29

Think I will be rubbish then. I would have loved to go but most of the people I hung out with (and would like to catch up with again) have all given the same excuse - childcare issues...

GiG - they were all out dating older guys at 16 while I was busy being in school plays and the like, we never really had a huge amount in common!

OP posts:

CrackWhoretoPaulDacre · 28/09/2009 20:32

They're probably all going because they want to remember the best days of their lives, when other people wanted to be like them and they didn't realise that all they had in front of them was [insert deadend lifestyle of choice].

People with real lives don't generally need to do this, people with real friends can make new ones where they find them.

OmicronPersei8 · 28/09/2009 20:41

My experiences of meeting up with those I didn't get on with (the cool gang, I too was in the geeky gang) is that I still don't have anything in common with them.

TheHeadbangingWombat · 28/09/2009 20:52

YANBU. I wouldn't go to a school reunion unless someone dragged me there while holding a gun to my head and playing Mariah Carey songs.

GeekIsGood · 28/09/2009 20:54

Sounds like my experience jockey! So have no desire to be made to feel swotty and unpopular again.

Well said CrackWhore!

Danthe4th · 28/09/2009 22:22

I've got ours in a few weeks time, I left school in the 80's and haven't kept in touch and i'm dreading it, I think i'll bottle it.

groundhogs · 29/09/2009 11:43

I went to my 10 year school reunion - I left in 84... all the people that were utter bitches and gave out filthy looks at you... were still doing it, for no more reason than they had the first time around... Most people there had barely moved on in life at all...

That said, I ended up talking to a lad in our class that back then I'd have never spoken to, 2 completely different circles.. He was SOO sweet and so nice! Saying that he'd wished he'd made the offort to speak to me when we were at school, cos I've turned out so well..

That for me was kinda what made it worth going, we exchanged a few letters afterwards, but then obviously lost touch again.

Danthe4th: Go if you have said you are going, as long as it's not going to involve herculean effort, and expect it all to be the same as it was way back when, it'll give you something to laugh about anyway!!

skihorse · 29/09/2009 11:45

I wimped out of my 10 year reunion because I had been very bullied and had always felt "sub-standard".

Anyway, following the event a friend sent me a link to the photos. ALL the pretty girls were now chubby & ropey and all the cool blokes fat, middle-aged & bald. And oh my, how OLD looking!

I wish I'd gone now - f*ck 'em!

CuntWhacker · 29/09/2009 11:47

LOL Skihorse. At least you got to see the photos, so you can still have your reflective glory. (And remember - you have always been better than any bully)

OP - if you don't want to go, then pull out

jemart · 29/09/2009 11:51

If it were my school re-union I'd probably go, but then my DH went to same school as me so we would go together. I might chicken out if I had to go by myself.

choppychopster · 29/09/2009 11:57

I'm going to a school reunion on Saturday too. You're not from a town in the South West beginning with C are you jumpjockey?

I'm half dreading it, but also looking forward to seeing what has become of everyone (especially seeing whether the cool, pretty girls have ended up rough and fat as at skihorse's reunion) and also catching up with a friend who I'm still in touch with, but rarely see any more.

But in answer to your AIBU jumpjockey, if it is a major hassle to go, but try and arrange to catch up with the two people that you'd like to see another time.

choppychopster · 29/09/2009 11:59

BTW CuntWhacker - loving your name!

GooseyLoosey · 29/09/2009 12:01

I wouldn't go. When pondering the possibility of attending one a few years ago, I realised that there was a reason that I have kept up with none of these people. I didn't like them! And if I didn't like them 20 years ago, chances are that I won't like them now.

I also found that I had a real reluctance to let these people into my life and tell them where I live, what I do, what my children are like etc. To me that felt like bringing them much closer than I ever wanted them to be.

I was glad to leave them behind 20 years ago and decided that I was quite happy to leave it that way.

fruitshootsandheaves · 29/09/2009 12:02

I dread getting an invite to something like that as when people ask what I do i'd have to say I've been a SAHM for 16 years and then they say 'oh' and walk away . its bad enough when it happens at family events!

claricebeansmum · 29/09/2009 12:03

Like GooseyLoosey I have just wimped out of a 20yr reunion. I have stayed in touch with the few people I liked. A friend reported back and it seems I didn't miss much...

GooseyLoosey · 29/09/2009 12:05

None of my friends went Clarice, so I still have no idea whether I would like the people who went or not. However, I saw no reason to subject myself to the possibility that they would all hate me!

claricebeansmum · 29/09/2009 12:08

The more I think about them the stranger I think they all were. Those that were apparently really clever have ended up doing not very much.

The CU lot have not changed at all apparently.

I have lost touch with two people who I would like to get in touch with but can't find them in the usual places.

Bleh · 29/09/2009 12:10

Well, I got a message from someone I went to school with on FB saying, give me your email address, we're organising a reunion.
As another geeky, very awkward teen I thought "Awesome. I don't need to go - I live in a different country!".

Today I got the invite. It is for the one weekend in nearly a decade that I am actually in the city I grew up in. Damn them. Now discussing with best friend from school what to do, and what kind of name-dropping type stuff we can do (though she's a nuclear physicist. She just needs to say that and people's jaws will drop).

mumof2222222222222222boys · 29/09/2009 12:11

I was invited to a 20 year reunion recently. I hated that school and was so miserable there that I was amazed to receive the invitation. I haven't quite declined - said they should let me know who was going and I would see what I could do as we had a bit of a conflict.

A little bit of me would like to be a fly on teh wall to see what the cool bods look like (I am 3 stone less than I was at 18 ), but I really don't care that much at all.

Chances of me going? Zero.

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