Class reunions: the cure for high self-esteem

This weekend I went to my fifteen year high school reunion. Nothing brings you back to your gawky teenage years like a class reunion. Whenever you’re starting to feel comfortable in your own body and you no longer care what people think of you, go to your class reunion. That will cure that case of self-confidence right up. Better than any ointment I know.

On TV, reunions always seem so fun. They have them in a rented hall or the school gymnasium. There are tables wrapped in table clothes with centerpieces on top…like at weddings. Everybody wears a name tag so you know who you’re talking to. Class officers get on stage and address the class. They might even give out awards for Best Dressed and stuff like that.

Yeah, that’s not how my reunions go. We usually meet at a bar where you’re always wondering “was that person in my class or is that just a bar patron?”

We had a picnic with families in the early afternoon. And then we got together at the beer tent at our local sweet corn festival. [I know. I know. Could we be anymore midwestern? We have a sweet corn festival for crying out loud. Don't even get me started on the kolache festival or sauerkraut days.] The sweet corn festival was followed by a gathering at a local bar.

Now we had over 350 people in our graduating class. 362, 364, 365…something like that. That’s a heck of a lot of people. You’d think our reunions would be jam packed. And they would be if even half our class came to them. But nowhere near half our class makes an appearance. [Which is a good thing because that bar is really small.] And I’d say this year was the worst turn out yet.

Maybe [and that's a big maybe] ten graduates [plus their families] showed up to the picnic. And just about everybody who showed up to the picnic are people I see often or have at least run in to in the last few years. So there wasn’t too much catching up going since we already see each other fairly regularly. In fact I work with half of them and see them daily.

However, there were more people at the sweet corn festival. But not many more. I’m going to be generous and say fifty people came to that event. [And that's being VERY generous.] How lame is that? Fifty people about of 365.

But the lack of people didn’t make it feel any less nerve racking. It still felt like we were back in high school again. The same people who hung out together in high school still clumped together at the reunion. I was no exception. I stayed pretty close to my friends too.

Isn’t that weird? Why come to a reunion if you’re just going to hang out with the people you talk to every day anyway?

I’ve given this some thought and I’ve come up with an answer. Because we don’t really care.

We just come to the reunion to see who got fat and who’s still skinny. Or who’s successful and who’s a total loser. Oh look at Popular Ms. Popularpants. She’s all fat and living in a dirty trailer park. Ha ha.

Or we come to show off. Yes, I’m a doctor. On TV. And my house looks like the house in last seasons ‘Real World.’

We don’t really care what the other 364 people are doing. If we cared we’d still be talking to them on a regular basis. It’s just a popularity contest all over again.

But I’m still glad I went. And I’ll go again in five years to our twenty year reunion. Apparently I’m gluten for punishment.

In all seriousness, I did have a lot of fun. If nothing else it was an excuse for my closest girl friends and I to get together. I’ve been complaining about how we never get together anymore. I can finally cross that off my New Year Resolutions list and call it done.

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