is why I think I've avoided class reunions so far. Last August would have been my 20th as well, and I hope those people had fun.

On a related note, Propecia ROCKS!

Probably because my class is making its way, one by one, onto Facebook, so we won't have the mortal shock of looking at a mirror of ourselves with 20 years' worth of life written on our faces. I can see my former classmates' children, tattoos, bald heads, laugh lines, crinkles, weight gain, all that. They can see mine (actually they can see my rockin' delts, my profile picture is me climbing a rock wall!)

At my tenth, we found out that a classmate had died of a rare cancer at 23. She was hugely obese when we all knew her, bad luck for her since obesity was fairly rare then. In school, she was reviled my most. She had a tiny crew of solid friends, and was mocked mercilessly behind her back and probably to her face by pretty much everyone else. At our reunion, the two girls who had her back the entire time got up and said what happened to her, and read a tribute. The entire class applauded her memory. At the time I (and another friend of mine) said to each other after that we were disgusted by the hypocrisy (I was sort of neutral on the girl, we were friendly but not friends), that all these people who called her names and ridiculed her were now pretending to have liked her all along.

With a few more years -- and a few more knocks and bitter pills under my belt -- I'll say that those people were not hypocrites but had matured and perhaps while they knew in their heads that they had been cruel to her, toasting her memory is now the only thing that is left for them to try and atone. They can't apologize to her, they can't approach her as adults on equal footing. All they can do is repent internally, and say nice things about her in a card to her parents.

The cheerleader and the mathlete are not rewriting the narrative of their high school years; they know who and what they were. I would rather believe that as the years have passed, and life has handed them their share of joy and sorrow, that they can now approach each other as mature and sensible equals, knowing that how we all experienced each other 20 years ago was a tiny snapshot of who we really are and would become.

I'm looking forward to mine, which is coming up in three years...

10 was weird, 20 less so.

At the ten year some people looked just like they had in high school, others looked much older. By the 20, we all looked like we were in our late 30's.

I remember being fairly happy in High School, but I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm about my 20 year reunion. I didn't have some bully that I wanted to prove myself to, or a unrequited love I wanted to reconnect with, and I didn't want to repeat my life story over and over again. Strangely, I was less interested in seeing my old friends from high school, than some of the people are hardly knew. I had this feeling that if we hadn't kept in touch, there was probably a reason for that. Strange. I ended up skipping it.

I was still annoyed by high school after 10 years. I ran as far away as I could from my hometown crowd as soon as I had my diploma and my college acceptance letter in hand.

Now, as my 20th approaches (not this year yet!), I'm thinking I could be amused by these people who used to make me miserable, whom I probably made miserable, back when we were going through the most miserable years of our lives together.

I've maintained ties with maybe 2 people from high school, out of a graduating class of 160+. If I want to stroll down memory lane, I'll call one of them up. Everyone else, I'm just glad we finally don't have to force our company on each other. (Not that everyone was awful, or that any of it was personal. But, the only thing we all had in common was our age and our zip code. And we'd all known each other since kindergarten. Friends? Like prison inmates are "friends.")

College was a completely different story: I found people I liked, people who had similar interests (What's your major? What's your minor? You're in this club too?). I keep in touch with dozens from college. And grad school was different again: more like surviving a war together. We'll probably have a reunion one of these days, but we went through so much crap together, kept each other alive and quasi-sane, that getting together for dinner is a little too hard.

I think you *need* 20 years to have enough perspective on high school and ho you survived it. At 38, I won't care what these people think of me, but I'll be amused to see who's bald or divorced or born-again or out of the closet, or not such a jerk after all. And they won't care about me either, but will probably be curious about me for an evening. Could be fun.

I think I'll go a little drunk though.

My 30th was 2 weeks ago. I didn't go. From what I hear it was pretty lightly attended. I went to my 25th, (under great duress). It was just too weird. I saw the same cliques forming, and I saw people who wouldn't have (literally) given me the time of day coming up to me as if we were great old pals. I won't say it was a great disappointment, but it was...unsettling. The ego stroking was nice, ("You look fantastic!"). And then there was that other thing that hangs over me: I can't stand hearing how everyone is so happy and successful and how everything has just turned out great for them! I don't have that luxury. Maybe they were lying. Maybe I should've lied. I don't want to talk about my job. I hate my job! Just to describe it is endangering to my listeners will to live. I'll consider the 35th, but I have to lose some weight first.

Great column, by the way.