High School Reunions
I tend to surf around the web a lot looking for random stuff to read but one of the sites i started going to over the last several months is abcnews.com (i'm blaming that on an ex-girlfriend that used my computer to visit that website one time). Anyway, sometimes they have interesting articles or videos about random things that you normally don't see. One that i came across this morning is from Good Morning America and deals with the awkwardness of high school reunions.
If you want to look at the video click here. So the story is that this girl was dreading her 10-year reunion and decided to hire a stripper to go in her place and pretend to be her. She video-taped the whole thing and is making a documentary about what she did or something. I'm not really sure the point of the documentary. The woman who hired the stripper is a comedy writer now, so i guess she's just trying to make an extra buck off the awkwardness of her classmates.
The premise behind the sharing of the story in the first place was that reunions are awkward and people worry about how their former classmates look, or how they're going to be judged by their former classmates, or something random like that. Back in October i went to my 10-year reunion, sort of reluctantly, but what i found wasn't anything like what GMA wants you to think.
First of all, all those "popular kids" from back in high school weren't so popular anymore. They were just normal people doing sort of normal things. I mean, "normal" obviously is kind of a vague term but i think that's the point. Normal includes pretty much everyone, because we all do weird things or think weird things, or have jobs or go to school, or have spouses and kids, or are stay-at-home moms. I mean, there almost isn't anything that isn't normal. Even breaking the law is normal these days (it's my understanding that we have the largest population here in the U.S. of those in prison/on probation/on parole in the world).
Second, any dread or awkwardness is related more to old feelings from high school than any real need for active concern. I used to have this thing that when i was around my dad i sort of reverted back to a silly teenage boy. I think it got on his nerves because i wasn't able to be serious for two seconds! I would sort of even do the same thing with my mom. It took an active effort on my part to get past that. Unfortunately we don't usually see all our old "pals" from high school on a regular basis, so when we go back and do see them we risk feeling things we haven't felt in 10 or 15 or 20 years or whatever. Memories we may not have actively thought about in a long time suddenly come back. If high school was a horrible experience for you, or in your head has become a horrible experience, the level of anxiety will probably be higher than for someone who loved it and had tons of friends (unless of course they're worried about all those friends still accepting them).
I was feeling moderate levels of anxiety when it came to seeing people at my 10-year reunion. I think it's normal for people to wonder how they measure up to others after not seeing them for so long. But whether i "measure up" to others or not, once i leave that building my life goes back to the way it was before i stepped into that building. That means that no matter what happens that night my life won't revert back to me being in high school and i won't suddenly become a nerd, or band geek, or jock, or nobody, like i might've been back in high school. And that's exactly what happened. Very little changed from that night to the next night, though i do have more classmates from high school as friends on facebook.
I guess what i'm really trying to say is that high school reunions don't have to be anything more than just seeing people with whom you went to school. That can be a difficult task for some, but the anxiety is created in our heads. There is no real pressure to live up to anyone's expectations. That is something we create based on what others say, and on movies, and on what the media talks about (like GMA reporting on that documentary the way they did). I mean, i seriously doubt Diane Sawyer or any of her co-anchors are really all that worried when they go to high school reunions, no matter how much they pretend that they hate them. I would hate it too if i had become a relatively wealthy and well-known person on tv with a steady and (somewhat) respected job...
If you want to look at the video click here. So the story is that this girl was dreading her 10-year reunion and decided to hire a stripper to go in her place and pretend to be her. She video-taped the whole thing and is making a documentary about what she did or something. I'm not really sure the point of the documentary. The woman who hired the stripper is a comedy writer now, so i guess she's just trying to make an extra buck off the awkwardness of her classmates.
The premise behind the sharing of the story in the first place was that reunions are awkward and people worry about how their former classmates look, or how they're going to be judged by their former classmates, or something random like that. Back in October i went to my 10-year reunion, sort of reluctantly, but what i found wasn't anything like what GMA wants you to think.
First of all, all those "popular kids" from back in high school weren't so popular anymore. They were just normal people doing sort of normal things. I mean, "normal" obviously is kind of a vague term but i think that's the point. Normal includes pretty much everyone, because we all do weird things or think weird things, or have jobs or go to school, or have spouses and kids, or are stay-at-home moms. I mean, there almost isn't anything that isn't normal. Even breaking the law is normal these days (it's my understanding that we have the largest population here in the U.S. of those in prison/on probation/on parole in the world).
Second, any dread or awkwardness is related more to old feelings from high school than any real need for active concern. I used to have this thing that when i was around my dad i sort of reverted back to a silly teenage boy. I think it got on his nerves because i wasn't able to be serious for two seconds! I would sort of even do the same thing with my mom. It took an active effort on my part to get past that. Unfortunately we don't usually see all our old "pals" from high school on a regular basis, so when we go back and do see them we risk feeling things we haven't felt in 10 or 15 or 20 years or whatever. Memories we may not have actively thought about in a long time suddenly come back. If high school was a horrible experience for you, or in your head has become a horrible experience, the level of anxiety will probably be higher than for someone who loved it and had tons of friends (unless of course they're worried about all those friends still accepting them).
I was feeling moderate levels of anxiety when it came to seeing people at my 10-year reunion. I think it's normal for people to wonder how they measure up to others after not seeing them for so long. But whether i "measure up" to others or not, once i leave that building my life goes back to the way it was before i stepped into that building. That means that no matter what happens that night my life won't revert back to me being in high school and i won't suddenly become a nerd, or band geek, or jock, or nobody, like i might've been back in high school. And that's exactly what happened. Very little changed from that night to the next night, though i do have more classmates from high school as friends on facebook.
I guess what i'm really trying to say is that high school reunions don't have to be anything more than just seeing people with whom you went to school. That can be a difficult task for some, but the anxiety is created in our heads. There is no real pressure to live up to anyone's expectations. That is something we create based on what others say, and on movies, and on what the media talks about (like GMA reporting on that documentary the way they did). I mean, i seriously doubt Diane Sawyer or any of her co-anchors are really all that worried when they go to high school reunions, no matter how much they pretend that they hate them. I would hate it too if i had become a relatively wealthy and well-known person on tv with a steady and (somewhat) respected job...
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