I've recently been pummeled on Facebook with "friend requests" from my fellow graduates from high school. Our 20-year reunion is coming up this summer, and I guess everyone is feeling all huggy and emotional about those days.
I have ignored every one of the friend requests. Chances are pretty good that if we're actually friends, we're already Facebook friends. I know that the definition of friends on Facebook is probably different from the real-life definition of friend. Even so, being trapped for a few years in the same educational institution together does not automatically make you my friend twenty years later.
One fellow didn't take a hint when I ignored his request. Twice. The third time (and I was surprised I bit my tongue for that long) I messaged him, telling him I wasn't his friend back then, and I wasn't feeling any closer to him two decades later. (He had something over 1000 people in his friends list. Tell me he's not trying to compensate for something.)
He was surprised, and admitted after a couple of messages exchanged back and forth that he recalls being mean to me in high school. All the more reason not to throw myself at him for a nice how-ya-doin' hug, though honestly I don't remember him being mean. Or much of anything about high school. Everytime I have a drink, I will the alcohol to kill those specific memory cells.
Back to the reunion. I hated that school, that dead-end hick town, my social status (or lack thereof), my friends (or the lack thereof) and the powerlessness of youth. A year or two after graduation, I cut all ties (including an engagement to a local hick boy) and moved down to Vancouver, which marked the beginning of my real life. The one that I carved for myself, not had pushed upon me by convention or lack of other opportunities.
The only reason at all I'd go back is to laugh. To laugh at the high-school beauty queens, once the envy of the school, now 60 pounds overweight, with three pudgy vacant children (or, more likely, grand-children) and a job at the nail salon. To laugh at the school jocks, unobtainable and desireable back then, now with thinning hair and their guts straining their John Deere belt buckles.
It's not worth the airfare just to mock them. My successes and adventures do my mocking for me. I wish my fellow graduates well, but I never want to see them or set foot in that town again.
Organizing committee? You can take that as a "no, I won't be attending." Now piss off and stop sending me info about it.
5 comments:
Good gravy, woman, you and I went to the same flippin' school about 10,000 miles apart. I hear you loud and clear.
I guess I'm one of those freaks who lived and loved high school :) Perhaps it's all the moving around every 4 years, I kinda become attached. I was never popular, never a cheerleader -- I was quiet, thin, no boobs, very very smart --- I knew everyone...I'm loving facebook connections for that very reason. But I know far more people who hated high school and totally think the way you do.
Dawson's Creek huh? Loved that show.
I was rather fond of high school, but my school was only 100 people total, so we were all pretty much stuck with each other, as different as we were, but we had a lot of fun and still keep in touch.
I've had some of those crazy persistent facebook requests too. One was from some people when I joined the 'Missing a Finger' group, and suddenly some people in that group wanted to be my friend, as if our lack of fingers suddenly made us inseparable soulmates.
Wow. Good thing you're...um...over it now, eh?
;-)
This is exactly why I don't have a Facebook account, and never will - I left them all behind too, and have never wanted or needed to look back or look them up.
While I admire those who have retained solid and happy longterm friendships from high school, my children for example, I too have never felt the need to go back and re-visit what was a socially panic-stricken and uncomfortable period of my life.
I have yet to see the advantages of Facebook? Anyone I want to see, or any one who wants to see me, knows where I am and how to get in touch. If you don't know how to find me - I'm pretty sure I don't want you to!!
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