This summer, the Rogers, Ark., high school graduating class of 1995 is holding its 10-year-reunion, and guess what? I’m invited! I didn’t ask to be invited, or even hope to be invited, I just was, by virtue of being part of that class. Many people were quickly contacted, and a Yahoo! group was immediately formed, where you could fill out a profile of yourself, post multiple pictures, give as much contact information that you were comfortable and willing to give, and then you just sit back and wait for the emails to pour in. And pour in they did. Many along the lines of, “What’s up, Everybody?”  “Wassup??!?” “Here’s a picture of me and my 17 kids (before the divorce!)” “Anybody seen so-and-so or blah blah blah?” 

Nope, haven’t seen ’em. Don’t want to. I quickly altered my settings to no longer allow unfiltered emails from the group to come directly to my account after one of the more, shall we say, “assertive” members of my class sent out a rant to 250 people about how pornography causes AIDS, destroys marriages, and we all need to find God. Or something.

So now the emails only trickle in slowly, from individual to individual, i.e., from girls I haven’t talked to in 12 years to me. (Always it’s girls; why can’t a hot jock write to me and say he’s sorry for being such a dick, and maybe there’s something to this whole gay thing after all?) They usually consist of about 3 lines, usually about how great little 4-year-old Jacob is doing, and that they want to buy a bigger house, and what am I up to?  I haven’t written back to a single one of them, for a multitude of reasons, but mainly because I have no idea what to say.  I have no children, I’ll never be able to afford a house, ever, I’m not married, and last night I sat alone in my living room and got drunk while I looked at boundandgagged.com. Somehow I don’t think they’d be very interested in hearing that. It’s not that my life is uninteresting, it’s just that… well, I can’t imagine why they care, and if they can’t be bothered to write me more than three lines and then expect some kind of thought-out response in return, then why should I bother at all?

Maybe I just have a bad attitude. After all, they’re making some kind of effort, right?  They care enough to look me up on the internets and then compose an email. All the e-mails are characterized by the use of a lot of exclamation points, generally, which conveys that they’re very excited to be writing to me. “Hey Ryan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How’s it going??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  Sometimes I feel like I’m being screamed at, and I get intimidated.  No one wants to be screamed at by a 28-year-old mother of four, believe me. Perhaps a little friendly advice should be my response to them.
But I digress. My point is, why bother getting together at all if everyone is going to know everything about everyone else already, through the advent of technology?  It’s no longer difficult at all to find anyone and contact them; usually all it takes is a two minute Google or Friendster search and you’re done.

After all that, is it really necessary to even get together in person anymore? I think the reunion should just take place in a closed chat room, where no one has to leave the comfort of their homes, or even get dressed if they don’t want to. There’s always the meeting the spouses thing, but if my own boyfriend can’t imagine anything more boring than going to my reunion, and I’m not particularly interested in these people in the first place, then why would I give two farts about their spouses? Truth is, I don’t.  I’m sure they’re lovely people, but the world is full of lovely people, and frankly, there just isn’t enough time to meet them all.  There are going to be casualties along the way.

A friend who had recently attended his own 10-year reunion told me that I would be one of the best-looking people there by far. Everyone else, he said, had gotten horribly fat, or just looked worn out already. And as evidenced by the pictures now posted on the Yahoo! Groups homepage, I don’t doubt this sentiment. I’ve put on weight since high school (in a good way; I’m still under 140 pounds), I’m much more confident, and dress way better, and the guy in the Whole Foods body shop that wants to marry me and my boyfriend told me just this past Sunday that I have great skin. I guess the idea of going and showing off is slightly appealing, but is maybe not showing up at all a little more appealing to me?  Yes, slightly.

I will also admit to being moderately intimidated. What if I haven’t received any of those apologetic emails from the jocks that made my formative years miserable because none of them are sorry? I couldn’t bear to sit and be snickered at, or worse: what if they’re still outright hostile? I honestly can’t imagine that happening, but what if it does?  All of my forgiveness I’ve been cultivating over the last 10 years would drain from my fingertips and I would be extremely hurt and embarrassed. It would also confirm my belief that I’m much better off than they are, even though I have no reason to really believe that now.

I’m totally ambivalent. No matter how happy or successful I am, flaunting it to everyone just seems stupid. Going back feels like more competition to me, just an adult version of a popularity contest (much like Friendster) gone horribly awry.  I might be pleasantly surprised, sure, but it’s a surprise I could live without. But if I had to prove that I’m happier, or more content, or just look better than the lady with four babies, well, I’m sure I could do that, too. But why rub it in her face?

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