The Fifteenth
Okay, so I said I'd write about this previously. I got a phone number last week, from my mom and dad. It's from a girl I knew in high school, and she let me know that they'd be celebrating my high school's 15th anniversary reunion.
In case I haven't been clear in the past, I didn't like high school. I fell into the "nerd" or "geek" category, and since I was pretty much the only one, you can imagine what happened from grades 6 to 12. The hell of it was that I really, really, really wanted to be liked by someone, anyone, and I kind of quickly realized that I was either going to be friendless or the uncool friend the one who's the butt of all the jokes.
The thing is, I've met some of the people I went to high school with all these years later, and quite frankly I've also realized that in order to be liked by most of them, I would have to be someone I really didn't care for. I want to do more on the weekends then get plastered and see if I can drive back to my house before I run over a pedestrian or get caught by the cops (yes I'm serious). I don't want my relationships to consist of screwing the girls who were cute or popular or both in high school, competing with the former jocks and bad boys in a game of musical beds. I also do not want to endlessly reminisce about my high school days. See, there are three groups of people that have come out from my high school--the ones who left and are now doing whatever, the ones who stayed and settled down in Mio (and usually got married to someone else they knew in high school), and finally, those who are in Mio, reminiscing about how great high school was, hanging out with their friends when they're not working, and keeping to the same cliques they formed when they were in high school, right up to keeping the same stupid nicknames. Incidentally, there's a lot of crossover between the second and third groups. Think about that.
So the thing is, I don't want to go to a class reunion. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, as I've seen, when you hang around people you knew in high school, you slide back into the roles you were previously in. I would like to avoid this at all costs. Second reason--I'm right now a starving artist and I don't have a girlfriend. As far as anyone can determine on the surface, I'm not successful, and I really don't want to admit that to anyone, least of all people who don't have a history of being friendly.
Which brings us to my third point. When I went to the small, informal gathering, the people there had talked about how much they liked having me around. This may have been the most surreal moment of my life. Since then, I've done some reading, and come across a psychological web site that suggested people restructure their memories to make happy times seem happier. So they had a good time in high school, and their memories have been restructured to include me in them. Unsurprisingly, I can't go along with that. I can't pretend high school was fun when it wasn't, and that I'm at all glad to see these people and pretend like we were friends.
Still, the urge remains, that small part of me trapped back in 1990 who would love for nothing more than to be loved and accepted by them. I'd kind of love to go to this reunion and regale them with stories and be the life of the party, but I'm aware that's not what would happen if I went. People, after all, fall back into the roles they know. I've seen that when I went to the informal gathering. Still, there's a part of me that wonders whether or not people have changed.
In case I haven't been clear in the past, I didn't like high school. I fell into the "nerd" or "geek" category, and since I was pretty much the only one, you can imagine what happened from grades 6 to 12. The hell of it was that I really, really, really wanted to be liked by someone, anyone, and I kind of quickly realized that I was either going to be friendless or the uncool friend the one who's the butt of all the jokes.
The thing is, I've met some of the people I went to high school with all these years later, and quite frankly I've also realized that in order to be liked by most of them, I would have to be someone I really didn't care for. I want to do more on the weekends then get plastered and see if I can drive back to my house before I run over a pedestrian or get caught by the cops (yes I'm serious). I don't want my relationships to consist of screwing the girls who were cute or popular or both in high school, competing with the former jocks and bad boys in a game of musical beds. I also do not want to endlessly reminisce about my high school days. See, there are three groups of people that have come out from my high school--the ones who left and are now doing whatever, the ones who stayed and settled down in Mio (and usually got married to someone else they knew in high school), and finally, those who are in Mio, reminiscing about how great high school was, hanging out with their friends when they're not working, and keeping to the same cliques they formed when they were in high school, right up to keeping the same stupid nicknames. Incidentally, there's a lot of crossover between the second and third groups. Think about that.
So the thing is, I don't want to go to a class reunion. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, as I've seen, when you hang around people you knew in high school, you slide back into the roles you were previously in. I would like to avoid this at all costs. Second reason--I'm right now a starving artist and I don't have a girlfriend. As far as anyone can determine on the surface, I'm not successful, and I really don't want to admit that to anyone, least of all people who don't have a history of being friendly.
Which brings us to my third point. When I went to the small, informal gathering, the people there had talked about how much they liked having me around. This may have been the most surreal moment of my life. Since then, I've done some reading, and come across a psychological web site that suggested people restructure their memories to make happy times seem happier. So they had a good time in high school, and their memories have been restructured to include me in them. Unsurprisingly, I can't go along with that. I can't pretend high school was fun when it wasn't, and that I'm at all glad to see these people and pretend like we were friends.
Still, the urge remains, that small part of me trapped back in 1990 who would love for nothing more than to be loved and accepted by them. I'd kind of love to go to this reunion and regale them with stories and be the life of the party, but I'm aware that's not what would happen if I went. People, after all, fall back into the roles they know. I've seen that when I went to the informal gathering. Still, there's a part of me that wonders whether or not people have changed.