The High School Reunion

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous going into my five-year high school reunion. A lot has changed since graduation, and it had been so long since I’ve seen some of my classmates. I mean, it seemed like forever since I last stalked their facebook profiles two days ago. There were just so many questions that needed to be answered. Who gained weight? Who turned into a swan? Who would be the loser to order a round of drinks, stand on a chair, and give a toast to “the class of 2004-eva!”? (Turned out to be me.)

I found that there were four types of people at my reunion: people I was excited to see, people I was not happy to see, people whose names I couldn’t remember, and people who couldn’t remember mine. What really stung was when the first of those groups overlapped with the last. Of course, the awkwardness of reunions like this always reaches its apex when a conversation strikes up between two people who can’t really remember each other:

“Hey, umm…chief!”

“Buddy! What’s up? You still doing your thing?”

“Oh you know it! You still doing yours?”

“Of course, dude. You know me, wouldn’t have it any other way!”

“That’s so classic you! Always doing your thing. You haven’t changed in five years, man.”

“But I’m a different sex now.”

Encounters like this, while unavoidable at a high school reunion, are at least kept to a minimum. The majority of the evening is spent catching up with old friends, sharing stories of our glory days while pretending that we are more successful than we really are. While I never technically lied to anyone, I made an effort to make my life sound better than it actually is. It’s all about presentation. I’m not “strapped for cash”; I just “toned down my spending out of respect for those affected by the recession.” I don’t “live at home with my parents”; I simply “found a low-rent place with two roommates who really enjoy bird-watching.” I don’t “sleep in a bedroom with rocking-horse wall-paper”; I’ve just been “spending a lot of time with my horses.”

Naturally, my primary goal of the reunion was to induce overwhelming feelings of regret in every girl who ever spurned me in high school. It was easy to reject me five years ago. I sometimes wore socks with my sandals. I drove a 1985 maroon Volvo station-wagon that smelled like a hockey locker room and struggled to make it up hills. I ate egg salad every day and was more concerned with the ERA of the Red Sox bullpen than I was with my own personal hygiene.

But it’s different now. I have a college degree, I drive a car with functioning turn signals, and I know how to impress women. I approached one at the reunion, and she asked me what I had been up to. I casually told her that I ran in the Boston marathon. “That’s cool,” she replied. “My parents told me that they’ve seen you running all around town.”

“Yeah, I trained pretty hard I guess. Some people complain that it’s too much work, but running long distance came pretty naturally to me. A doctor once told me that my limbs have the perfect proportion for stamina optimization.” I winked at her.

She blushed and said, “My parents also told me that they saw you puking in our bushes.” With that she walked away. She must’ve felt uncomfortable being around someone who she couldn’t keep up with.

I could tell that the “new me” was really impressing all the girls. Towards the end of the evening I even noticed several of them looking my way. They must’ve been amazed at how far I’ve come since high school. Five years ago I was the lame guy at the dance who stood along the wall watching everyone with a creepy smile on my face. Now here I was, still along the wall watching people dance, but this time infinitely cooler because of the beer in my hand.