High School Reunion Survival Guide
Thanksgiving weekend is coming up, the best holiday of the year. With Thanksgiving comes an all-you-can-eat buffet of tradition: football, turkey, booze, pissed off Indians, passive/aggressive behavior from my in laws, the works. It also means it’s high school reunion time. And since reunions take place every five years, that means in any given year, 20% of Americans are bracing themselves for this quinquennial and quintessential rite of passage. A night of being judged, lied to, evaluated, envied, scorned, praised and ridiculed.
No one really looks forward to their reunions. There’s always someone who you dread seeing. Maybe it’s some guy who was always a complete a-hole in school and you’re afraid you’ll find out he’s doing way better than you. Or it might be your old girlfriend who ended up marrying the a-hole who’s doing way better than you. Either way, you won’t want to hear about the second house they’re renovating down the Cape or how much they love their sailboat when you’re living off of Ramen noodles and your financial plan consists of hoping Monday Night Football can bail you out from a bad weekend with the bookie.
But you have to go. Reunions are a strangely compelling phenomenon. And they serve a purpose. They’re like a milepost, a marker along the path as you stumble drunkenly through this life, reminding you that it’s time to take a good long look at yourself and where you’re at. But make no mistake: a high school reunion is not to be enjoyed; it’s to be endured. Survived. And it’s never easy. Here’s some tips on how, from a guy that’s been to a few:
Reunions are like Bizarro high school- It’s amazing, but true. The people in your class have gone from seeing each other every single day to, in most cases, never seeing each other at all. But within an hour of the party getting into gear, the same social grouping reform themselves. Like animals on the savannah, the jocks start hanging out with the jocks, the smart kids with the smart kids, the popular girls with the popular girls, and the underachieving, beer-obsessed sports nerds with…me.
But by the time you’ve hit your reunion, everything is reversed. Remember the “All in the Family” where Archie goes to Edith’s reunion because he’s jealous that she still has a thing for Buck Evans, the track star? And when she finds Buck, he looks like a fatter, balder Rick Majerus? That’s reality. Trust me on this: the handsome, popular kid you were jealous of in school has gone completely to pot. That tomboy you never gave a second look to is a complete MILF. The nerds whose lives were made miserable by the handsome, popular kid rule the world and have hot wives. The point is that everyone’s life peaks at some point, and if yours peaked in high school, there’s a medical term for your condition: “loser.”
Don’t be uninteresting- People will ask you what you’ve been doing since the last reunion, so you better have something to say. Few among us can honestly say “Well, I quarterbacked three Super Bowl champions.“ But you don’t want to go to this thing with nothing more to show for the last five years than the fact that you’ve been to all four goblin cities in World of Warcraft. Of course, it’s a little late to do anything about that now. Maybe you should start working on the next reunion.
Come up with a good cover story- Don’t be afraid to lie. That girl you sat next to in Western Civ who’s aged well and still single, doesn’t want to hear that every day you report to work in a soul-crushing cubicle. So shade the truth a little to make yourself more interesting, just like you do on your resume. If you’re a bean counter for some mutual fund, say you’re in finance or the stock market. If you’re a mailman, say you work for the government and act like you’re not at liberty to discuss it. If you work at some dumpy district court, say you’re involved in the judicial system; she’ll won’t know if you’re a convicted felon or Chief Justice of the SJC, but either way she’ll be more interested than if you tell her the awful truth.
Oh, and keep it plausible. No one who saw your grades will buy the idea that you’re a secret agent, numbnuts.
Don’t believe anyone else’s cover story- See above.
Beware of Unfinished Business- If you have a significant other and you want to stay faithful, bring them with you. Class reunions result in more extra-marital affairs than Denise Richards. Some combination of alcohol, music from your heyday, and “it’s not really cheating because I’ve had a crush on you since third grade” raises the Infidelity Threat Level to red. Did I mention the alcohol?
Go easy on the booze- Actually, this is impossible. There’s something about a reunion that turns everyone into Barney Gumbel. Every class reunion I’ve been to cracks the top ten on the list of My Most Drunken Nights. At my fifteenth, somebody got a room in the hotel and had a couple of dozen of us back for an after party. The house detective had to come to the door no less than eight times to ask us to quiet down, which is a pretty good indication of how much we’ve matured over the years.
Get a room- Not just so you can have an after party full of drunken soccer moms talking at the top of their lungs. But because you’ll regret it if you don’t. A hotel room might cost you a hundred. An OUI attorney will be fifty times that. And Thanksgiving weekend is to a cop trying to make a pinch what Mother’s Day is to a restaurant: the busiest time of the year. In spite of what the police like to say, they’ve got quotas to meet. If they aren’t arresting people, eventually their chief is going to ask why. An otherwise easy-going cop knows he can make up for a whole years worth of letting people off with a warning by arresting drunks trying to make their way home on reunion weekend.
Let loose- About five years after you graduate, you completely lose touch with whatever songs are popular in the dance clubs. You might secretly love “Buttons” by the Pussycat Dolls, but you know that if you find yourself in a club that’s playing it and you set one foot on the dance floor at your age, people will look at you like you’re the screwball uncle at the family wedding. A school reunion will save you from that because any DJ worth his $75 an hour will play the stuff you never stopped liking, no matter when you graduated. Whether it’s Dexy’s Midnight Runners or Hootie and the Blowfish, this is your one chance to work it to the music you still consider your own. And to remind everyone of the legend you created on the dance floors of Boston back in the day.
If you’re the one-in-five Americans with a reunion this year, follow these tips and you should survive. If not, remember, it’s never too soon to start getting ready for your next