F%$#ing Surreal
Aug. 27th, 2006 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
willow_redThat's really the best description for my high school reunion. The main event that the most people went to (100+) was the reception at the Denver Athletic Club on Saturday night. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I kept myself open to the possibility of just about anything. And naturally, of all of the things I had anticipated over the past several months, in thoughts and dreams, the reality was a completely different animal I did not predict.
Some of my classmates actually grew up.
Yes, of course we're all ten years older now, but the striking thing was that with the maturity we gained, the social walls that constituted our reality in high school came crashing down. Sure, there was a subset of the popular group who stayed catty and refused to talk to anyone other than their own, but for the most part, the barriers had disappeared. Over the past ten years, people learned how to talk to the opposite sex, and they learned that fame is fleeting and often meaningless.
Early in the evening, I met up with Jake, one of the computer lab gurus from high school. We knew each other from being in the same social strata of "geek" throughout school, though I tended more toward "academic nerd" and he was more of a "computer nerd." He gave me my first indication of how surreal the night would be (and yes, I fully plan on abusing the word "surreal" because there is no better term). He lives in California these days, along with a good chunk of our graduating class. We were talking, and he told me a story about how he, a once bottom of the barrel geek, now hangs out and often goes drinking with the class homecoming king. Former popular guy and former geek...and they go to bars an hit on women together. And that was where the brain warpage started. It was at that point that I decided I needed a drink.
The details are already getting confused in my brain, but I talked to so many people, it amazed me! Yeah, there were still people who refused to talk to me, but I didn't care. There were plenty who were happy to talk about their lives, and shared my curiosity about everyone else. It boggled my mind how many people I spoke with that never would have given me the time of day ten years ago. There was Yana, who was a friend back in second grade before we had a falling out later on and wanted nothing to do with each other through the rest of our school careers. I ran into her a few years ago at a mall, and was surprised that we got along then. Last night, we reminisced about things going all the way back to elementary school, and even the fact that we both had crushes on the same boys back in the day. To my own shock, I even told her about the bullshit that happened with one said boy freshman year of college. Ask me a week ago, and I would never have predicted that I would tell her that!
I also spent a good amount of time talking to Mike, who I have known since first grade. He was our official class clown, intelligent, gifted, probably undiagnosed ADHD, and by the time high school rolled around, in a far different social class than I could imagine dealing with. We talked about all kinds of stuff, and he kept giving me hugs. Craziness, pure and simple. I got a picture of the two of us because at that point, I had to.
Another person I ran into was Michelle. She was a very weird girl in high school, was sort of in our group of friends, but spent a lot of time as a loner. Now, she's happy, well-adjusted, successful, and unrecognizable. If it wasn't for the fact that she shared certain memories of school and people, I would have been certain that she was an imposter who just picked up the first name tag she saw.
Now for the most surreal point of the night. To give some background, when I was in elementary school, there was a girl named Amy. She was the very definition of popularity to us. The best example I can think of to tell you how popular she was would be yearbook signing at the end of every year. (Note that elementary school "yearbooks" consisted of a few sheets of paper stapled together with the word "signatures" at the top.) Anyway, Amy would set up a table with one of her trusted associates in the top circle, and everyone else would line up to get her to sign their yearbook. We would be filtered by members of that top circle to keep Amy from wasting valuable time. The other person at the table would control access to Amy's yearbook, only letting people sign if they followed her properly. Yeah, you can guess where I was during all this...off in the corner with the other outcasts. Well, last night, I not only conversed with Amy, but got our picture taken together just to have proof for later, when my brain is done exploding. As it turned out, over the years, Amy had learned that popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she found more important things in life. The other thing that boggled my mind is that she's still single. I never would have seen that coming in a million years.
It was really comforting to have my core group of high school friends to check in with every so often. I really needed the periodic sanity check. The above stories are only a small sampling of the people I talked to. I also had some really good conversations with people who I never met in high school (our graduating class was over 500, so nobody knew everyone). One was the sister of a guy I knew and despised; turns out she can't stand him either, and they're twins! Another was some random girl I had never heard of, and she had never heard of me, but we had fun talking all the same.
At about ten o'clock, people made a mass exodus from the reception and headed for a bar. Given that we were already in LoDo, the only difficulty was figuring out which bar most people were going to. After getting about five invites to the same place, I figured that would be the one to go to. I think maybe fifty or so people ended up at the Paramount Cafe, where we drank some more and chatted some more. The next item on the agenda was hitting the strip clubs, at which point, I decided to bail. A small group was using Jake's birthday (poor guy, having a reunion on his birthday!) as an excuse to go look at naked women while drunk, and I didn't feel the need to go with them for that one. Besides, by then it was about one in the morning, and I was losing my voice from shouting over music and crowds to talk to people.
So that was Saturday night in a nutshell. I'll try to write about the Sunday picnic tomorrow or so. Pictures will also be forthcoming once I get the software installed for my nifty new camera. Right now, my jaw aches, my throat is still a little sore, despite a steady stream of cough drops all day, and I require sleep.
Some of my classmates actually grew up.
Yes, of course we're all ten years older now, but the striking thing was that with the maturity we gained, the social walls that constituted our reality in high school came crashing down. Sure, there was a subset of the popular group who stayed catty and refused to talk to anyone other than their own, but for the most part, the barriers had disappeared. Over the past ten years, people learned how to talk to the opposite sex, and they learned that fame is fleeting and often meaningless.
Early in the evening, I met up with Jake, one of the computer lab gurus from high school. We knew each other from being in the same social strata of "geek" throughout school, though I tended more toward "academic nerd" and he was more of a "computer nerd." He gave me my first indication of how surreal the night would be (and yes, I fully plan on abusing the word "surreal" because there is no better term). He lives in California these days, along with a good chunk of our graduating class. We were talking, and he told me a story about how he, a once bottom of the barrel geek, now hangs out and often goes drinking with the class homecoming king. Former popular guy and former geek...and they go to bars an hit on women together. And that was where the brain warpage started. It was at that point that I decided I needed a drink.
The details are already getting confused in my brain, but I talked to so many people, it amazed me! Yeah, there were still people who refused to talk to me, but I didn't care. There were plenty who were happy to talk about their lives, and shared my curiosity about everyone else. It boggled my mind how many people I spoke with that never would have given me the time of day ten years ago. There was Yana, who was a friend back in second grade before we had a falling out later on and wanted nothing to do with each other through the rest of our school careers. I ran into her a few years ago at a mall, and was surprised that we got along then. Last night, we reminisced about things going all the way back to elementary school, and even the fact that we both had crushes on the same boys back in the day. To my own shock, I even told her about the bullshit that happened with one said boy freshman year of college. Ask me a week ago, and I would never have predicted that I would tell her that!
I also spent a good amount of time talking to Mike, who I have known since first grade. He was our official class clown, intelligent, gifted, probably undiagnosed ADHD, and by the time high school rolled around, in a far different social class than I could imagine dealing with. We talked about all kinds of stuff, and he kept giving me hugs. Craziness, pure and simple. I got a picture of the two of us because at that point, I had to.
Another person I ran into was Michelle. She was a very weird girl in high school, was sort of in our group of friends, but spent a lot of time as a loner. Now, she's happy, well-adjusted, successful, and unrecognizable. If it wasn't for the fact that she shared certain memories of school and people, I would have been certain that she was an imposter who just picked up the first name tag she saw.
Now for the most surreal point of the night. To give some background, when I was in elementary school, there was a girl named Amy. She was the very definition of popularity to us. The best example I can think of to tell you how popular she was would be yearbook signing at the end of every year. (Note that elementary school "yearbooks" consisted of a few sheets of paper stapled together with the word "signatures" at the top.) Anyway, Amy would set up a table with one of her trusted associates in the top circle, and everyone else would line up to get her to sign their yearbook. We would be filtered by members of that top circle to keep Amy from wasting valuable time. The other person at the table would control access to Amy's yearbook, only letting people sign if they followed her properly. Yeah, you can guess where I was during all this...off in the corner with the other outcasts. Well, last night, I not only conversed with Amy, but got our picture taken together just to have proof for later, when my brain is done exploding. As it turned out, over the years, Amy had learned that popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she found more important things in life. The other thing that boggled my mind is that she's still single. I never would have seen that coming in a million years.
It was really comforting to have my core group of high school friends to check in with every so often. I really needed the periodic sanity check. The above stories are only a small sampling of the people I talked to. I also had some really good conversations with people who I never met in high school (our graduating class was over 500, so nobody knew everyone). One was the sister of a guy I knew and despised; turns out she can't stand him either, and they're twins! Another was some random girl I had never heard of, and she had never heard of me, but we had fun talking all the same.
At about ten o'clock, people made a mass exodus from the reception and headed for a bar. Given that we were already in LoDo, the only difficulty was figuring out which bar most people were going to. After getting about five invites to the same place, I figured that would be the one to go to. I think maybe fifty or so people ended up at the Paramount Cafe, where we drank some more and chatted some more. The next item on the agenda was hitting the strip clubs, at which point, I decided to bail. A small group was using Jake's birthday (poor guy, having a reunion on his birthday!) as an excuse to go look at naked women while drunk, and I didn't feel the need to go with them for that one. Besides, by then it was about one in the morning, and I was losing my voice from shouting over music and crowds to talk to people.
So that was Saturday night in a nutshell. I'll try to write about the Sunday picnic tomorrow or so. Pictures will also be forthcoming once I get the software installed for my nifty new camera. Right now, my jaw aches, my throat is still a little sore, despite a steady stream of cough drops all day, and I require sleep.
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