Reunion, Part II

Oct 4, 2011 by Lauren

Well, the reunion is over.  Thank God.

 

I think there were two things that surprised me more than anything else:

1. How many people are getting divorced

2. Finding out that people really don’t change

 

In high school, I was kind of the girl who was nice to everyone and had my own little tribe of people who didn’t fit in with any specific clique.  Then, during college, I used to come home and visit and, inevitably, run into 40 people I went to HS with.  I used to complain to my mom that I can’t escape these assholes.  She would remind me that people change and just because I didn’t like them in HS doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like them now or that they haven’t changed.

 

Thank God we have reunions to remind us that Mom…you were dead ass wrong.  People never change.  Not deep down anyway.  The people who were snobs are actually even MORE snobby.  The popular kids are still fake as hell.  Actually, add the snobby girls in that category as well.  I met a friend’s new girlfriend when he brought her to the reunion.  She didn’t know anyone except her boyfriend and even to her it was blindingly obvious which people were being fake and which people didn’t like each other.  You don’t need to work for the NSA to figure this stuff out, people.  One of the more nerdy guys from our class actually told me that some of the popular group had asked him why he never partied with them in high school.  He replied that, #1 he didn’t party and #2 they didn’t invite him.  The popular group had the gall to tell him they would’ve invited him.  The nerdy guy said, yeah, no you wouldn’t have.  I’m not that stupid.

 

That’s the kind of crap I don’t understand.  Are these former/current douchebags trying to make themselves feel better by “atoning” w/ all the people they were mean to?  Another group was trying to remember the HS nickname of one of our larger classmates.  My friend reminded them that the nickname was “Fatty McGee,” or “Fatty” for short.  The popular group looked disgusted, as if they couldn’t fathom that HS kids could be so mean, and replied…oh, we thought it was something about a rodent.  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.  Because that’s so much better.  Assholes.

 

One of my friends’ co-workers told her that the 10 year reunion is the one to attend because things get crazy.  My friend asked what that meant and her co-worker explained that you’re all still young enough that not everyone is married/has kids and (as we saw) some will be in the first round of divorce, so this is the reunion where people tend to get drunk and hook up.  I don’t think that happened, but who knows?

 

All in all, it was nice to see my friends but, realistically, the people I enjoyed seeing/talking to the most are the people I see and talk to on a regular basis anyway.  Maybe people who went all the way from grade school through senior year together feel differently about it, but the whole thing just served as a reminder that you are who you are, asshole or not, and it’s never going to change.

 

I promised myself that I would try to have fun and enjoy the party, and to some degree I did.  It was nice to see my friends but, realistically, the people I enjoyed seeing/talking with the most are the people I see/speak with on a regular basis anyway.  It turned out that you are who you are, asshole or not, and it’s never going to change…which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when I spent most of the night reprising my HS-to-real-life role of “bitchy girl in the corner making snide remarks.”  🙂