I recently attended my high school class reunion. It was the first reunion I had attended since graduation and I don’t use Facebook so I had not seen hardly anyone from my class in 40 years.
About 25% of my class attended and I learned a full 10% of my class has already passed away. I immediately recognized a couple of old friends as well as a couple of the more “popular kids” from my class (feels weird writing that given we are all rapidly approaching 60).
Several classmates recognized me and were familiar with some of my activities. I am not famous but my name and photo appear in the news a couple times per year due to the nature of my professional and volunteer work).
I wasn’t sure what to expect other than a lot of thinning / greying hair among my classmates. I think what surprised me the most was the different perspective I had by the end of the reunion. I was pretty introverted in school and assumed the girls I was interested in were unapproachable and not interested in me.
I found out by the end of the reunion that at least 2 of them thought I was unapproachable 40 years ago because of my academic reputation. When one of them told me I was always the smartest member of our class I dismissed the comment as flattery. Then she pulled out our senior yearbook and flipped to an article about me being a National Merit Scholarship Finalist (I did not win it and had completely forgotten about it).
MUCH to my surprise I had 3 women ask me to dance with them - it almost felt like a Rom-Com movie since I never went to a single dance in high school. I warned each of them that I am not a dancer but I was willing to give it a try with them (no alcohol was involved so I was well aware of how bad of a dancer I was, but I was not going to pass up the opportunity).
Anyway, my head is still spinning from all the memories and 80s music so I thought I would share. Have you attended any of your class reunions? What was your experience like?