Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Reunion recounted

So my oddly timed 10 year HS reunion happened over the weekend. I guess the thing that was most abundantly clear walking into event was that I had no idea who 90% of the people in attendance were! Unfortunately the inverse did not seem to hold true. Every two seconds my personal space was being invaded by some vaguely familiar stranger jovially screaming my name. There was way more people here than I ever imagined there would be.

Most people weren’t even wearing nametags so I had to give a whole lot of “Hey you’s!” to random people walking up and greeting me. For the most part it wasn’t too bad because I walked in with Tyler, Jane and Brad flanking me and they mostly provided a decent buffer from all the humanity that seemed to be coming at us from ever direction. Jane has this creepy memory where she can recall every single person in her homeroom class from all four years of high school, so she had no problem identifying all these strangers.

The first truly awkward and mostly terrible moment of the night happened almost right after we walked in. The girl I lost my virginity to (and she to me;)) walked up to me and gave me a HUGE hug. As we untangled she reached over to give Jane and Tyler a hug, then she looked at Brad and commented on how he looked much too young for this crowd… Moment of truth! So I introduced my 22 yr old boyfriend of 4 years to her… Her jaw hit the floor. She smiled and quickly walked away, didn’t hear from her for a few more hours as she took the time to really soak in this new info… We laughed heartily about that for the next few hours until she came around again.

Bulging eyes and awkward silences became the theme of the night as I introduced people to Bradley. It was really funny because nobody was being rude or offensive or anything like that, they were all just genuinely surprised and caught off guard with this new information. The girls were the best because they ALL did this thing where their voices went up several octaves and each time I was worried a window would shatter! Most of the guys just made crass and inappropriate sexual jokes about Brad’s age and his muscles and stature. All in good nature of course.

At the far end of the hall there were all these pictures on this massive display. There were all the different sports team shots, and candids during different events, etc. (standard yearbook crap) Brad had a lot of fun spotting me all over and commenting on my hair, clothing decisions and general cocky demeanor that seemed to ooze from each of my pics. And I really was all over that wall! Varsity Surf, Vasity Golf, Varsity Tennis, Class VP junior and senior year, Academic Decathlon, peer counseling, beach cleaning organizer, Asian/Pacific Islander Leader of the year. When the fuck did I ever find time to sleep!? Seriously looking at that wall made me feel like such a lazy underachieving loser! What the hell happened to me?

I don’t really know what the point of HS reunions are. I had a good time in HS, but I just don’t understand the point of reliving it. The people I still wanted to remain friends with are still my friends, the ones I wasn’t interested in back then, still not so much caring about them now. By the end of the night most of the people were pretty drunk and making out with each other all over the place. It was pretty sad and extremely uncomfortable to witness. All these people acting like teenagers when they are all closer to 30, it was all just really lame!

Eddie (HS classmate/former boyfriend/current colleague and very good friend) had the right idea avoiding this disaster like a twilight movie! I thought the night pretty much sucked, but Tyler and Jane really enjoyed themselves. Maybe I have a mild case of late onset autism setting in rendering me incapable of recognizing a good time. Maybe I had a lot of unconscious anxiety about coming out to all of my former peers in such a large setting. Maybe the whole event was just as sad and pathetic as I thought it was. Whatever the reasoning, that was such a waste of a perfectly good Saturday night!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fastest way to finding all the gay kids in high school is rounding up all the over achievers! Once you've done that you start looking at the ones that not only over achieve, but do so in everything. It's the number 1 survival rule of the closeted gay teen!

Jason said...

That sounds terrible! I skipped my 10 year reunion and you are making a good case that I made the right idea.

letopho said...

You nailed. It anon! All the overachievers had an additional extracurricular.

Currently in SD now. Always wonder who you are fuckgnar