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heysupnm's avatar

What surprised you at your 20 year high school reunion?

Asked by heysupnm (289points) September 28th, 2008

I’m graduating this year and I’m really curious to find out what my classmates will be like in the future… Are the clichés true? Did the smart, but antisocial “nerds” become millionaire doctors? Who or what surprised you?

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16 Answers

deaddolly's avatar

I never went. Hated most of the kids and hated the nuns even more.

googlybear's avatar

My class couldn’t “get it together” enough to have a 10 year reunion, 20 year reunion, etc.

EmpressPixie's avatar

We had our five year last year but I forgot to go. Definitely the most interesting thing would be the year below us. After graduation one of the girls in my group of friends started dating one of our professors—and not a young one—and they got married last year. So, I mean, if I didn’t already know, that would totally be the best part of going back.

SuperMouse's avatar

You could not pay me enough to go to any of my reunions.

sarapnsc's avatar

I never went, there wasn’t anyone there I had a desire to see or reminisce with. I stayed in touch with a few of my friends over the span of 20 years, and they told me who died, who went to prison etc. There was no reason for me to go, I had no desire to see anyone.

deaddolly's avatar

My sister’s husband has one every year. She hates it; he loves it.

marinelife's avatar

I went to the ten year. I wasn’t ready to go back at the twenty-year mark. The cliches were mostly cliches. I did not see that sort of thing much. My graduating class was huge, though, more than 600!

JackAdams's avatar

The number of people who could not attend, because they are dead.

My 40th year reunion, was this year (Class of ‘68).

hearkat's avatar

The $80.00 tab!!! I would have gone, but that was too expensive!

I went to the 10 year, and was disappointed to see how everyone just gravitated into their same cliques.

tedibear's avatar

I didn’t go to my 20, but did go to my 25 last year. The only surprise was the cheerleader who had figured out that she is a lesbian and was there with her partner. The nice people were still nice, most of the “stuck-up” people weren’t that way. (Two exceptions that I saw.) I was pleased to see that one of the very snobby guys is now fat and balding. Yes, it’s vindictive, but he was pretty nasty to me from grades six through twelve.

Some people I would have never recognized, others looked exactly the same.

It was a relatively pleasant experience, but I don’t plan to go to my 30 or 40 or 50. I already see the people whom I wish to see from that time.

@JackAdams – Class of ‘68 rocks! My favorite sister (I have 4) is class of ‘68. :)

JackAdams's avatar

One of the things that was amazing to me, when I attended my 20th, 30th and 40th reunions, was that all the “babes” I had crushes on, were no longer “babes” for some reason…

They got older too, and that was just so wrong

whatthefluther's avatar

I was part of an 1100+ student class of 1972 at what was the top or at least one of the top academically rated high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District at the time (my family actually relocated our residence to specifically be in its boundary). It was a very bright class with nearly the entire class headed to college with many accepted to the leading universities throughout the country with even a few headed to Europe to the some of the best colleges in the world.
I attended a formal 20th reunion and a casual 25 year reunion picnic. Not many surprises. The assholes were still assholes only now with asshole kids and the nice kids were now nice adults. Nearly all were very successful and ended up in fields to which they appeared headed. I was one of the exceptions as teachers and classmates had me pegged as M.D. material due to my love of biology and the sciences but the university opened my eyes to much more than the sciences and although I received my degree in biology with most of my upper class studies in microbiology and immunology, I could have darn near obtained minors in 19th century Russian literature (my favorite, Dostoyevsky) as well as philosophy (specifically existentialism). I took that varied education to a large and highly competitive corporation and pretty much exploded through its ranks with great success.
At the reunions, I did notice that not only did the cute girls develop into beautiful women, but so did many of the plainer looking girls. However, I attended the casual picnic with my now ex wife, six years my junior and then extremely hot and very sexy and the picnic certainly gravitated in our direction giving me more peer attention than I received in my entire three years of high school (that may be an overstatement…I did enjoy modest popularity in school).
There was one student in my class that obsessed with keeping communications open between classmates and despite the class size succeeded in doing so. I receive email announcements about once a week and there are reunions annually, be it even a casual picnic, but I don’t count any of my high school friends as current friends, have little interest in what classmates are up to nowadays and no longer attend any of the functions.
Sorry about the long answer, but wtf, it gave me a chance to reminisce a bit. I suspect I could put together a fairly complete memoir just by plucking my answers out of fluther, but I undoubtedly bored or lost you long ago! Please accept my apology (that is, if you got this far).

Mr_M's avatar

Like @dead, I never went. Hated most of the kids and the brothers so there was no one I’d want to see after all these years. Wasn’t a single teacher that inspired or motivated me. It would have been like “Carrie goes to her high school reunion” so I think not. Besides, with the advent of sites like Classmates, etc., people don’t have to wait for reunions to see each other anymore. High School websites also allow for alumni communication. I wonder if the net will eliminate reunions someday?

tiffyandthewall's avatar

@whatthefluther, i read the whole thing and i think that’s pretty cool haha.

i’ve been thinking about whether i’m actually going to want to go to my school reunions in the future lately, and i kind of want to go now just to see how everyone’s going to turn out haha. [=

give_seek's avatar

How old everyone looked.

Val123's avatar

That I got voted “sexiest gramma”! LOL!

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