Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Facebook Is Ruining My High School Class Reunion In June

I have a high school class reunion coming up next month.

I have not been all that enamored of the idea of going to the bother of going north for this event.

I did not know why I was not all that enamored of going north for this event until this morning, courtesy of an article in the Seattle P-I.

Facebook is destroying reunions around the world.

In the past couple years, thanks to Facebook, I have had more contact with people I went to high school with, than I have since I graduated from high school. A long, long time ago.

People used to go to reunions to catch up on old friends, find out how they'd been, what they'd done, where they lived, how many reproductions they'd reproduced.

Now, thanks to Facebook, a lot of people get a lot of "status" updates, daily, from a lot of people they knew long ago.

In other words, Facebook is like an ongoing, perpetual reunion.

Thanks to Facebook, regarding people in my high school class, I know where people live, who they are currently married to or not married to, details of ongoing divorce sagas, who currently has cancer, or has had cancer or has died from cancer, who is in re-hab, who is out of re-hab, who needs to get into re-hab.

Thanks to Facebook, I know what people I went to high school with barbecued for dinner yesterday, what they watched on TV last night, where they went on vacation, where they are going on vacation, who they are going on vacation with.

Thanks to Facebook, I know how well some people have held up over the years. And how hard the years have been on others, this information due to seeing photos of Facebook faces.

Thanks to Facebook I've already had a reunion, in person, with someone from my high school class, meeting up with me for lunch, when she was passing through Texas on the way back to Washington, last September.

That actually was a very pleasant reunion. Mexican food was involved. And no one was consuming adult beverages.

I remember at the last high school reunion I attended in person there seemed to be way too much consumption of adult beverages. I remember at one point someone who had consumed too much, physically lifting me off the ground when my name was mentioned during one of my classmate's comedy routine. I do not like my physical self being randomly assaulted.

The last reunion I attended in person was July 27, 2002. In Lynden, Washington. The biggest family reunion in my family's history. I'd helped bring it about. To my ever lasting regret. I was only up there for a week. It was a long week.

If I go to the bother of going to this, upcoming in June, high school class reunion, I have a fear that after I go to all that bother, I get to the reunion to find only about 40 people, seeing many of the people I'd already seen on Facebook. Then, sometime in hour two I start feeling regrets that I'd gone to this bother. And that by hour 3 I start looking to escape.

Or, maybe I'd have myself a real fine time. I am not good at predicting these type things and tend towards making pessimistic assumptions.

1 comment:

Gail Galtex said...

I've had the same experience with high school friends on Facebook. I went to a high school "super" reunion last July in Austin that was organized on FB. So, the only people there were the people I'm friends with on FB. No one else knew about the reunion.