Went back to my hometown, to my high school reunion. Have not seen most of these people in 25+ years. Here are my observations:

• Everyone who was hardcore into sports and got college scholarships for it hasn't done their sport in 20 years and never did it again once they were no longer the hotshot athlete. Most of them expressed regret over spending all their time on sports instead of just having fun and hanging out with friends more in HS and college. Half of them have knee replacements or other permanent injuries.

• Kinda the same with the overachievers on grades…there's not much discrepancy in people’s outcomes in life long term, between the honor society try-hard-at-grades types and the slackers/partiers. It’s not like the nerds are all millionaires and the slackers are all working washing dishes in a kitchen. Pretty much everyone ended up married with kids and a middle to UMC job. Fully half of them ended up becoming teachers, from both groups.

• One exception to everyone ending up similar are the people who got into hard drugs (especially opiates), many of whom are dead or in jail now.

• The party/slacker crowd seemed to have no regrets at all, and were just rolling laughing telling old stories all night.

• Everyone is extremely nice to you at a reunion, even people you were never friends with or thought would not remember you. They're hugging you, giving compliments, apologizing for any old shit they might have done, revealing how much they admired you or telling you some flattering or funny memory they have about you. Everyone wants to solidify and inject good will into these old relationships. Literally none of the bullying dynamics or social hierarchy is evidenced, everyone's there to spread fellowship and talk with everyone.

• Five types of guys who show up: 1. Wife and kids guy, proudly pulling out photos of them and conducting himself respectfully, 2. Newly divorced guys, kinda seem a bit off the rails, 3. Happily and permanently single guys who work in some sort of outdoor oriented job like managing a ski school, who spend all their money on motorcycles, 4-wheelers, RVs and other toys and are living the I Do Whatever The Fuck I Want Wild and Free lifestyle, 4. Shy quiet guys back then who are still the same way, now, and still searching for a girlfriend/wife. 5. Gay guys. 6. Married guys with kids who aggressively hit on their HS crushes who’ve maintained the same weight, and follow them around everywhere, flirting even in front of their own wives, on pain of being in trouble later. This one is kinda over the top and bad, but it seems a bit of alcohol mixed with nostalgia brings back all their teenaged feelings again. This last type rivals the family guy type for highest numbers.

• One type of woman who shows up, doesn't matter if she's married, has kids or is single: super excited to talk to everyone and tell them the good things they remember about them, hug, take photos, and keep the good vibes going. Besides reminiscing and giving each other compliments, all of them love to talk about their dogs and pull out their dog pics all the time, whether they have kids or not.

Probably there are some other types that stayed home.

Generally, my takeaway is that all the personal drama and rivalries were long forgotten and didn't matter anymore, everyone was just happy to see each other. And that spending all your time stressing about sports or grades to get into a good college is pointless (unless you literally could get a scholarship to Harvard or something), bc the kids who did were no better off or happier than the kids who spent more of HS socializing and developing funny/crazy stories. Plenty of the big intellects ended up floating around quite a bit in life, before figuring things out.

I dont mean this to be proscriptive, and could be very time and place specific, it’s just what I observed.

I have a feeling most Substackers are the “why tf would I want to go to a reunion, I don't give a shit about those people” types, and that's too bad. If it's just your 12th, then meh. But once you get to your 20th and beyond, I highly recommend. Good to remind yourself where you came from, reconnect, and WAY more fun than I’d expected.