Mark Blevis

It was bound to happen, really.  The 20th anniversary of my high school class is coming up; June 2009 to be exact.  The notice came through a Facebook group invitation earlier this week.

“just got a FB notification for my 20yr high school reunion. Time to hit the treadmill and order the hair plugs” goes the Twitter post by my friend Jay West.

I haven’t joined the group, yet.  That’s odd for me, really.  I just can’t figure out the concept behind the class reunion.  I didn’t think twice about it when, 9 years ago, a couple of my high school classmates organized an informal gathering at a local bar.  It was a good gathering; fun, actually, and well attended.  Everyone was genuinely happy to see each other and the cliquiness I remembered from high school failed to show up.  The people did, but the exclusiveness didn’t and people who hadn’t said much to each other for the five years that they saw each other almost every day had a lot of fun connecting that evening.  It wasn’t that “I love you and I’m drunk” kind of catch up.  It was legitimate and sober “hey it’s great to know you” catch up.

The reason I’m not certain about the reunion is that the only thing most of the class of 1989 has in common is that we were the class of 1989.  We’ve all stayed in touch with the people that have some day-to-day relevance in our lives and we’ve grown apart from the rest of our friends.  That’s not to say we don’t like the people we’ve drifted apart from; we’ve just grown apart.  The years have reduced what we have in common.

I spoke to Jay about the invitation, Jay being one of my high school friends with whom I remain in regular contact.  We talked about seeing photos of our long lost friends online, friends that now look like their parents did when we were in high school.  We talked about the virtual clipboard that attends reunions.

“Spouse?  Check.  Two kids?  Check.  Still lives in Ottawa or moved away?  Check or check.”

It’s an odd situation because if you take away talking about the time someone showed up late for class and stuck their foot in the door as the teacher closed it, and the requisite catch up on 20 years of personal life, there isn’t much else to talk about.  Perhaps all the bad rap that we give reunions is misplaced.

Then Jay and I wondered about the impact of Facebook on reunions.  Does it change the dynamic since we can identify the answers to those questions by looking at individual profiles?  Does it negate the need to have reunions since we can find out everything we need to know and potentially reconnect online?

Maybe it’s an age thing.  Maybe at 29 we’re still hip enough and high school still close enough that the distance in the friendships seems like an accident, and now at 39 we realize it’s an inevitability.

And, after all that, I’ve joined the group.