Oooh, high school. For some, it was the best of times, and for others, the worst of times. Perhaps you're considering attending your next big high school reunion, or maybe you're fairly set on sitting it out altogether. Well, these unexpected stories might just convince you to change your mind. Redditor u/Zdvj asked, "People who attended their high school reunion, what was the biggest surprise?" Here are the stories that people shared.
1. "The biggest surprise was finding out about my former classmates' careers. Most of us have pretty unremarkable jobs but some stood out. The guy who got arrested for underage drinking three times is now a cop, the super genius decided to move to Costa Rica to save the rainforest, and the 'bad' kid joined the Army and now runs a small business. He's now doing very well for himself."
2. "A couple years after my parents got divorced my dad went to his high school reunion and ran into his prom date. They caught up. She'd been the one that got away. Turns out she recently divorced from husband number two. They agreed to meet for drinks, then dinner again soon, and the next thing I knew they started dating. When I left for college they got married. This didn't happen at a ten-year reunion, mind you. Sometimes you have to wait a little bit longer to get the happy ending you've been hoping for."
3. "So many people went in completely different directions than I ever would have expected. For instance, a guy I played football with was nicknamed Boozing in high school because, well, he was always boozing. He's a cardiologist now and doesn't drink at all."
4. "There was a discussion about how you don't remember the nice things done to you in high school, but those mean, disgusting things and comments haunt you forever. At this point, one of the shyest girls from high school slams her drink, pounds the glass on the table, and screamed at the mean, popular girl from high school. She said she was evil and tortured her every single day with snide comments. Every single person there then started sharing horror stories about the mean, popular girl until she left in tears."
5. "Back in high school, there was one girl who was extremely popular, extremely pretty, and seemed totally unapproachable. She was also really catty, embodying a lot of the 'mean girl' stereotypes. Talking with her at the reunion, it turned out that she was very insecure back then and had a very tenuous home life for which she was over-compensating. Now she is extremely kind, full of gratitude, and just really down to earth. I love seeing that sort of change in people."
6. "The massive stoner from the year below me who used to get suspended on a monthly basis turned out to be the head of the school English department."
7. "The only real surprise was just how wrong we were about how people would turn out. The Ivy League-bound students you were sure would be CEOs one day ended up dropping out of college, having normal middle-class lives, jobs, and marriages, and just being happy as 'average.' The athletes are now anything but athletes, having turned out of shape and frumpy. One guy ended up becoming a semi-successful author, and nobody saw that coming. It just goes to show that who you are on graduation day is absolutely not who you will become in three, five, ten, or thirty years. The future is yet unwritten."
8. "I was surprised by how little changed at my 15-year reunion. The cliques were still cliques. The whole event largely felt the same as high school did, but at a bar."
9. "I rekindled things with my now-wife. We hated each other in high school, but at the reunion, everything clicked. We had both changed a lot since high school. We talked and drank and decided that we had enough common interests at that point that dating would be a good idea."
10. "It was disturbing to discover that 17 classmates had died by our 10th high school reunion."
11. "My 7th-grade crush, the smartest girl in class, was still single at our 30-year reunion. When I asked her what she likes to do for fun, she said, 'party!' We were 48 years old."
12. "At my 20-year reunion, it was shocking to discover many people seemed like they actually wanted to get to know me better in high school. Back then, I felt like a total social pariah. It turns out, a lot of people would have likely been my friends if I had given them a chance and been more open to it. Back in high school, I was defensive because I didn't want to get rejected. But in retrospect, I fear I might have missed out on having more friends."
13. "I recently went to my 40th reunion. A bunch of old people showed up. They looked like the parents of the people I knew in high school. It was freaky."
14. "My dad went to his 30-year high school reunion. A woman with whom he had a one-night stand with right after graduation approached him. She asked if my dad remembered her and he said yes. She responded, 'Good. We have a 29-year-old daughter. I have her phone number if you want to call her.'"
15. "I discovered that the valedictorian at my school decided to skip college, move to some island in the Caribbean, and sell fruit on the beach. Sometimes the smartest people are the ones who figure out what would make them happy, and they do what they can to get to the closest version of that."
16. "The valedictorian of my class went to Yale and then Harvard Business School. He's now a managing director at Goldman Sachs, which probably doesn't sound that surprising. But it is strange considering back in high school he was an avowed communist who use to talk about banning currency all together."
—Anonymous
17. "At my 10-year reunion, the organizers were giving out 'awards', for example, to the person who traveled the farthest to attend, things of that nature. There was an award for the person who had the oldest kid, and my former classmates started shouting out their kids' ages. When it quieted down, this shy girl near the front said in a normal voice, '11 years old.' We all quickly realized why we had stopped seeing Heather right before graduation."
18. "One guy showed up with full Kiss-style makeup on — you know, white face, black shapes around his eyes, and black lips. We were too awkward and polite to question it, so everyone just chatted with him as though it was completely normal to turn up to a school reunion like that."
19. "My mother went back for her 40-year reunion last summer. In December she left my father after 36 years of marriage for her high school sweetheart. She's now living with him."
20. "At my twenty-year reunion (a whole two decades after high school) two guys got arrested for fist fighting. Turns out, one of the guys slept with the other guy's girlfriend in high school, and drunkenly brought up now ancient fling. Neither of the guys married her...or even dated her after high school for that matter. Still, those idiots both got arrested twenty years later for her."
21. "Some girl confessed to cheating on her high school sweetheart, thinking enough time had passed it wouldn’t bother him. She thought wrong...
