School reunions

[DuckRabbit]

I have two separate friends who've travelled back to their respective country of origin this year expressly to attend their school reunion. Is attending school reunions more typically a NT thing to do or have any ASC individuals attended their school reunion?

 

[Autistamatic]

Never have, never will. School was a living hell and I have no desire to relive those days.

 

[Isadoorian]

Many people attend their Reunions if they so choose; not exclusive to one group or another.

I'm personally not going to mine because it doesn't interest me, and I know many won't be able to make it due to them possibly being dead, being in jail, or their life's getting in the way as per usual with lots of things nowadays. (I'm just thinking of all this rather realistically, of course, because these things do indeed happen.)

 

[Juliettaa]

The thought of attending a school reunion fills me with dread.

I was mercilessly bullied for not 'fitting in' and I have absolutely zero interest in seeing anyone from school. Ever

 

[Bolletje]

I skipped mine. I didn’t really enjoy spending time with my classmates when I was in school, I didn’t particularly care about seeing them again.

 

[Mia]

Is attending school reunions more typically a NT thing to do or have any ASC individuals attended their school reunion?

Never have. My tiny local high school (among many in that area) was swallowed up by an enormous newly built school. Which I was bused to and from for twenty minutes twice a day. It had it's advantages, a huge library, a large multi-use gym, art rooms, stages for acting, music/band rooms, an arena, soccer fields and tennis courts, shops, labs.

Managed to stay quite autonomous at the school. And easily avoided bullies from my old school. In fact I flourished, acting in plays, musicals, dance and gymnastics. After I graduated I moved from the area but felt no real connection to the school. There have been school reunions since, that I have not attended. Will acknowledge that I had three very good teachers, who instilled a desire to continuously learn, that is still with me.

Reunions are all about the students, I had few connections with any of them.

 

[Judge]

Sad to see the same responses, but completely understandable as well. I still recall when I was working years ago and there was one claims adjuster who was someone I also had gone to school with. He was exasperated to observe that I had utterly no interest in our high school reunion.

When I graduated from that place I never looked back in terms of my fellow classmates. Though I did have one or two teachers I was fond of. When I occasionally think back about many of my schoolmates from grade school, junior high and high school, let's just say that such thoughts are neither warm, friendly or kind.

 

[Pats]

Absolutely not!!
You know how they say if you haven't used or worn something in over a year to get rid of it? Well, for one thing it's kind of like that. If I've not seen someone in the past year, they feel like a stranger, but worse - they know me.

 

[onlything]

Never been to one. I don't think I'd go, even if I was invited.

 

[Pats]

Duckrabbit this is a good topic. And I do think it's more of an NT thing that I've never understood. People go and put on a show for other's to think how great their life has turned out. See who got fat and who got bald and who they ended up looking better than or doing better than. Maybe share some old memories with a handful of people. I've never gone and have never had a desire to go, but from listening to people who have gone, this is the type of information I hear them talk about. And then I've known a couple people that started seeing an old flame, which always goes wrong - it didn't work 20 years ago, it's not going to work now. People don't really change that much.

 

[Autistamatic]

I do social media now purely as a way to network with other autistics and build an audience for my work, but it was a daunting prospect.
I was on Facebook so far back I can remember them celebrating their first 100K members, but I left it several years ago mainly due to the number of nasty people who had treated me like dirt as a teenager, contacting me like I was a long lost friend.
"Remember when we laughed over....."
No - YOU laughed with your mates - I was the butt of the joke.
That's why I would never do a reunion.

In addition - whenever I see a high-school reunion depicted in a movie or on TV - it's always a source of high drama, everyone's bitching about each other and fawning over the people who were popular kids back in the day. I chose to escape from it for good.

I guess the song is right. "High School Never Ends..."

 

[DuckRabbit]

The unanimity of responses suggests to me that the following should be a new diagnostic criterion for adult ASC added to the DSM: "Would rather hammer nail in own head than attend school reunion".

I agree with @Pats they are more likely to be hotbeds of social comparison and one-upmanship than anything else.

Perhaps there should be reunions for those people who shrink back in horror at the thought of attending their school reunion - the non-reunionists?

 

[Mia]

number of nasty people who had treated me like dirt as a teenager, contacting me like I was a long lost friend.

Same thing happened to me, and I thought why the .... would I connect with you? You've got to be kidding. You are not my friends, never were my friends.

 

[selectivedetective]

This is interesting because last year someone from my school contacted me on LinkedIn to ask me to meet a few of them at a restaurant, on the reunion weekend. I'm afraid I had no idea what to answer, and rather than saying yes or no, just ignored the message.

Recently I've been wondering about why I reacted like that. I wouldn't say I was mercilessly bullied at school, but I know I felt very different and struggled, not only to fit in socially, but also struggled to keep up academically, as I grew older. I think I grappled with how to answer the invitation too, because now, 30 years on, I have fewer achievements than most of them will have -not that much of a career, and a bit of a disastrous personal life. I was scared to tell them who I was then, and am more scared now. Also, just practically, alone with three children and struggling to make ends meet, I had no idea how to get away to a restaurant in another part of the country for a night.

But, whether or not my reasons for not answering the invitation are valid, I think being dead, and probably being in jail, certainly seem valid reasons for not turning up.

 

[Rectify]

If I've not seen someone in the past year, they feel like a stranger, but worse - they know me.

It's quite disturbing when you put it like that.

I have made sure never to be contactable by school groups and people since I left decades ago. So, I've never received an invite. Perfect.

 

[Fino]

I can just go on Facebook to see who got fat.

 

[Stuart1975]

I have two separate friends who've travelled back to their respective country of origin this year expressly to attend their school reunion. Is attending school reunions more typically a NT thing to do or have any ASC individuals attended their school reunion?

Can’t think of anything worse, didn’t like the pupils nor the teachers. I remember saying years ago to someone “the only thing that got me through school was the knowledge that one day I won’t have to go anymore”to which I got that “you weirdo look” now after a late and recent diagnosis (one year and three months ago and at the age of forty three) this and many other things make sense.

 

[Gracey]

Perhaps there should be reunions for those people who shrink back in horror at the thought of attending their school reunion - the non-reunionists?

we could all sit in our own homes and watch netflix or read at a certain time on a specified date

I might not be busy on that particular evening.

was always far too busy to attend school reunions.
wasn't anything of the sort but couldn't say,
"I didn't like you back then, what makes you think that's changed?"

 

[Mary Terry]

I've attended only 2 high school class reunions in the past 45+ years and they were pretty dreadful. There are only 2 or 3 former classmates with whom I have any regular contact and they live about a mile from my house. We occasionally get together to do things like make pickles, jellies, jams and salsas together because we like to garden and find interesting ways to preserve what we grow. We laugh about how awful high school really was, wonder why people claim high school was the best years of their lives, and drink some good wine. That is plenty of "reunion" for us. LOL

 

[Progster]

No, never been to a reunion, no interest whatsoever. I spent my life after leaving school trying to forget about it, the last thing I want is to be reminded of it. I didn't go the the prom that they organised at the end of it, either.