Let me explain.
I live close to the home where I grew up, and travel there on weekends. Because its a beautiful resort town, people who went to high school there are reluctant to leave. And because its a small town, you can't go to pick up some milk without seeing someone you've known forever. Someone who knows your dog's name, who knows you were trying to get a job at the big-city news corporation last spring. A guy from my graduating class owns the local fisherman's pub, we call it "the Fish." His band plays there Friday nights. At the beach I know all the lifeguards; and the girls sitting in the sand are light years from high school days, now married and bringing their babies to the beach in little bonnets and little bathing suits.
We didn't have a 5-year reunion. Didn't have a 10-year one either. It just didn't feel necessary- since most of us see each other all the time anyway. Though, the real reason we haven't had a reunion is because no one wanted to pony up and plan it, which is shameful, yet humorously reminiscent of our high school spirit. Go class of 1998.
I saw an old friend a few weeks ago- our class valedictorian. He's now at a prestigious business school, travels the world with his genius girlfriend. They are destined for prep-school parenthood. I'm not really fazed by it. But I'm not really fazed by much of anything that any one's been up to since graduation, including myself. I suppose I feel like we all sort of follow the trajectory we've been on since grade school. I don't feel judgmental or surprised about how things have turned out.
But this friend of mine- he seems to have been carrying it with him for years. And by "it" I mean, a desperate desire to prove himself to the kids of our graduating class. Apparently he's burned by 4 years of what he considers social underestimation and bullying-- none of which I ever remember happening to him. I think if he was really teased, or if kids ignored him-- it was subtle and I didn't notice it, and I was his friend, I think I would have known that was going on.
Anyway, that's not the point. When I saw him last he said he wanted to have a reunion so he could point and laugh at everyone for what they've become. Those are his exact words. I suppose he plans to simply ridicule by comparison of his own success, make everyone jealous? Or maybe he plans to literally point and laugh.
I kept my thoughts to myself (except now): But, no one's going to care. If someone really wanted to go to the best business school in the country, he would have tried as hard as my friend has and made it happen, or come close enough to it.
Also, only someone who has really made it could evoke the kind of jealousy my friend is hoping for-- who does my friend think he is, James Bond? Is he going to rent an Aston Martin for the night? Aren't there better things to do with one's money and energy, but to waste it on some grown-up kids who have totally different ideas of value and success than he does?
And anyway, lots of people have done outstanding things with their lives- things they consider outstanding anyway, like beginning a family or living the dream on the beach with a surfboard 365 days a year. My friend would have to have invented the Post It, or enter the reunion by being lowered from a helicopter, or have choreographed a really cool dance to do in the middle of the cafeteria for when they play our prom song, to really impress people.
I mean, "point and laugh"? Really? How could anyone care that much, 10 years later. How could anyone give people such importance, especially people who he was placed with randomly, not by choice, not filtered down and grouped by industry-- pure chance.
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