Kate Hackett
Fun story: I actually didn’t even know my high school reunion was happening because I graduated early and I think everyone forgot about me.
It’s fine. I have no desire to go to my high school reunion.
But some people love it and god bless — they find it exciting to see old friends or face old insecurities, I suppose!
Today we have a Reddit thread of people sharing their most surprising moments at their high school reunions. Leave us a note with your most shocking reveal in the comments below.
1. Bar
My 10 year reunion was held at a bar. It was all the same people at the bar as it was every weekend, but this time they were wearing nicer clothes.
2. “Missing”
The last I ever heard of my high school reunion was in an alumni newsletter. I was listed as “missing” with a request for anyone who knew how to contact me to contact the alumni organization.
The newsletter was sent to my house.
I’m trying not to take it personally…..
3. What if I’m dead?
My friend asked me to go with her to our 20 year and I asked her to just say I was dead.
They added me to a slideshow with my punkass highschool photo in an obituary powerpoint presentation. My friend said random people went up and spoke about me positively.
Now I really don’t want to go to future ones.
4. Death
It was disturbing that 17 classmates had died by our 10th reunion.
5. Some jobs
The biggest surprise anytime I catch up with people I grew up with is finding out their career. Most of us have pretty unremarkable jobs but some that stood out:
-The guy who got arrested for underaged drinking 3 times is now a cop
-The girl who couldn’t form a coherent sentence is now a teacher
-The super genius is living in poverty because he decided to move to Costa Rica to save the rainforest
-The bad kid joined the Army and now runs a small business and is doing very well for himself.
-The golden child is now in prison for sexual assault
-The weirdo became a DJ and does shows at night clubs
-The nerdy D&D kid now owns and operates an outdoor shooting range and is one of the largest ammunition suppliers in the area.
6. Surprise
Back in high school, there was one girl who was extremely popular, extremely pretty, and seemed totally unapproachable from my vantage point. She was also really catty, embodying a lot of the “Mean Girl” stereotypes. Talking with her at the reunion, it turned out that she was very insecure, and had a very tenuous home life for which she was compensating and now she is extremely kind, full of gratitude, and just really down to earth. I love seeing that sort of change in people!
7. Cancer
A guy had cancer and attended. He looked to be 80 years old but was in his late 20s. Cancer really took a toll on him. Sad.
8. We both made it
That my friend was still alive and he was equally surprised that I was.
We got into drugs together right after HS, we ended up being so fucked up that one night we robbed each other (he sold me a bag of actual grass and I gave him a dollar instead of a 20 and we both ran in opposite directions and never spoke again. Friendship ended, no one even confronted the other.
10 years later at my HS reunion I see him sitting in the corner, we were both sober and looking great. I walk over to him and first thing he says to me was “OMG I THOUGHT YOU’D BE DEAD” and I said the same thing back to him… we talked the rest of the night, he didn’t even remember why we stopped talking in the first place, just that we were both in a very dark place when we parted ways lol. Anyway we both felt it best we leave the friendship there and did not exchange numbers or anything but I’m glad he’s alive.
9. Plot twist!
The massive stoner from the year below me who used to get suspended on a monthly basis was the head of the English department.
10. Why so many
Real estate agents, so many real estate agents.
11. Aging
How incredibly differently have people aged.
12. Wacky!
At the ten-year, One guy who had been a kind of nerd and on the bowling team was now part of a “wacky morning DJ” crew on one of the more popular radio stations in New York City, and came in with big hair and dressed like a rock star.
13. Who are you?
That I couldn’t remember anyone. Everyone remembered me because I was the freak in high school, and people kept coming up to me and being like “Scienceforbid, it’s so great to see you.” And I kept having to run to the wall where they’d plastered blown up yearbook photos to figure out who the fuck anybody was.
14. Awwwwww!
At some point of our 10y reunion I asked the girl I had a crush on back in 7/8th grade if she knew that I had a crush on her. I just thought it was fun talking about that as adults. Turnes out she texted me several times the next days, we met again and now, almost 6ys later we’re engaged (for 2ys… but didn’t marry yet ;)) we have a house, a child, second child on the way and everything is great.
Not what I expected back then.
15. The really wrong-ness of it
The only real “surprise” was just how wrong we were about how people would turn out.
The ivy-league bound people you were sure would be CEOs one day, ended up dropping out of college, having normal middle-class lives, jobs, and marriages, and just being happy as “average”.
The people you were sure would end up like Wooderson from School Daze, turned out to get Masters degrees and even PhDs in one case, and now work in either government or aerospace.
The guy who fought to get into West Point, ended up doing his required four years and then leaving the armed services.
One guy ended up becoming a semi-successful author, and nobody saw that coming.
Two committed suicide, and many asked “Why? He seemed to have everything going for him!?”
The girl who got pregnant at 16, who you were sure was destined for a life of struggle, ended up landing a great career and retiring early. And her kids turned out to be great people who any parent would be proud of.
The people you were sure would never lose contact with their friend group, vanished as if they never existed.
The people who had to ask yourself, “I don’t recall that name at all, did they graduate in my class?” are now friends with 75% of the class on Facebook, and active!
The athletes (boys and girls) are now anything but athletes, overweight and frumpy.
The frumpy dumpy ones now are rock climbers and hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail.
IT JUST GOES TO SHOW: Who you are on graduation day, is absolutely not who you will become in three, five, ten, or thirty years. The future is yet unwritten, and the only thing stopping you from change, is yourself.
16. How do you remember?
The only high school reunion I attended was my 50th. I was surprised that people remembered things I’d done with amazing detail specificity.
17. No clue who that was
My wife and I hosted our 10 year in 2014. We arranged everything via facebook figuring it was the easiest way to reach people. We left the group open so people could add people who had been married and weren’t easily searchable due to changing their name. Well this person added themself and started making trouble about everything – they literally had a complaint about every aspect of what my wife and I were planning. The issue was nobody had ever heard of this person. We looked in our yearbook and they weren’t in it. We were getting messages from dozens of people about their behaviour in the group and who the hell this person even was. So my wife asked. Apparently they got kicked out of their high school final semester of their senior year and came to our school for three months. When the reunion came around they were the first to show up, sat quietly in a corner and left early. I still have no idea who this person is.
18. Who knew!
How many people seemed like they wanted to get to know me better in high school.
When I was in high school, I felt like a total social pariah and I would only approach people I thought were also at the bottom of the social food chain.
It turns out, a lot of pretty cool people would have likely been my friends if I had given them a chance and been more open to it. Many people mentioned that they thought about being friends or better friends with me but weren’t quite sure why it didn’t happen. Also, at the reunion, I was much more extroverted and confident and I realized a lot of the people I thought were popular snobs were very cool people.
Back in high school, it’s not like those folks were begging me to hang out and I said no, but I was definitely defensive because I didn’t want to get rejected. This means that I might have missed out on having not only more friends, but better ones because picking from the lowest rung of the ladder often meant I was dealing with people who had a lot of emotional problems.
19. We remember so differently
One thing I have noticed is how many people remember themselves being uncool in high school, but others don’t remember them that way at all.
20. I won
The people who made fun of me for my weight were now fat, divorced, and barely making it. I lost weight in college, got married to a wonderful man, and have great kids. And in the end they thought they were still better than me. I guess I found irony.
