You might argue that Facebook and Google have really killed enthusiasm for high school reunions — I mean, you already know what everyone's up to — but that doesn't mean they're obsolete. In fact, they're still entertaining and sometimes even shockingly cringe.
As a result, u/Respect_The_Box asked, "What is the worst thing that has happened at a high school reunion party that you attended?" Many people opened up and spilled just how their high school reunions went down, and they're just as overdramatic as you probably remember high school being:
1. "My sister, my-now husband, and I were all in the same graduating class. Plus, my husband's best friend, whose name is something like 'John Smith' — very common. He was very popular in high school and a super-nice guy who stood out in a crowd. If you didn't know him, you certainly knew of him. Anyway, the 20-year reunion rolled around, and only my sister went. She called right after and was very upset. Apparently, there was a huge memorial wall for John Smith, who'd just died. None of us knew! It was awful, but then my husband was like, 'Wait, we just saw him?' He called John up and was like, 'Hey, dude, are you dead?' No. Not dead. Surprised, but not dead. It turned out the other, less popular John Smith had died. They made a lovely memorial for the wrong guy."
2. "Some girl confessed to cheating on her high school sweetheart, thinking enough time had passed that it wouldn’t bother him. She thought wrong. This was our 10-year reunion, and the two of them hadn’t seen each other in years. As far as I know, they broke up shortly after high school ended. After she broke the news — somewhat nonchalantly as well — the guy flipped out and slapped her, then started screaming at her. She ran away, at which point he broke down, said something about wasting his high school years, and left."
"We still managed to have a good time even after all that though, which was nice." —u/BobMightBeCool
3. "Someone I knew from school tried to arrange an unofficial 15-year reunion because the school wasn't doing one. He was socially inept and would say and do odd things that people picked up on a lot — but his heart was always in the right place. He went to a lot of effort, but very few people responded. Those that did mostly made snide comments about the event behind his back, dissing the location, etc. Some even made fun of him personally, as he was doing some [things] admittedly odd. Close to the event, he cancels and blows up, sending everyone a (justified) message about how they can all go suck eggs and how he was just trying to do something nice to catch up with people. That was received with more snide remarks too. A few months later, he died unexpectedly from a heart attack."
"Most of the people who didn't reply seem to be the more decent people and, coincidentally, the ones who have moved away or moved on in their lives.
Those who did respond were mostly the ones who still spent every week at the same bars with the same school friends. When it was canceled, they all actually went out the same night for drinks but didn't invite the organizer." —u/JustJenR
4. "One of my friends got someone pregnant back in the day, and she kept the kid. They've both been great about it — he helps financially, but that was the extent of his contribution. She married soon out of high school and met a great guy who has been the de facto dad. Either way, the reunion was held during the day, and they let you bring your kids. Well, someone let slip that my friend is that kid's 'real' dad, and the kid heard it. It was a fucking shit show."
5. "One guy had made not one but two fortunes and had a net worth of well over $100 million by our 20th reunion. He developed high-speed modem patents in the late 1980s and was an early investor in broadband, so he'd already retired. On our classmate update bulletin, he listed his occupation as 'unemployed and unemployable' as a bit of a gag. Some of the well-meaning but clueless classmates sought him out to offer encouragement and tips on how to find work."
6. "It wasn't really bad, just odd. A guy came with full Kiss-style makeup on — white face, black shapes around his eyes, and black lips. We were too awkward and polite to mention it, so everyone just chatted with him as though it was completely normal to turn up like that."
7. "My 10-year reunion killed itself before it happened. Turns out our class president — who is traditionally in charge of organizing — took a hard turn into a Footloose character after high school. No alcohol was allowed, not even BYOB. A few classmates in a reasonably successful band offered to play for free, but she was adamant that there'd be no music or dancing. Plus-ones were for spouses only. Two guys happily told her they'd bring their husbands, and she kicked them out from the Facebook page. The food would be catered from a grocery store whose food is actually OK, but tickets were $60. It was ultimately canceled because, out of our class of 300, less than 10 people bought tickets."
8. "Someone told me, 'You're not a failure — be yourself!' So when I went, I proudly told them what I was doing these days: Working a $9.25 per hour job and going back to school after having gotten my life together in rehab and back on track. I was proud! Well, they all pitied me. One dude even tried to give me money. It made me feel bad about my current progress."
"I hate people." —u/Gyrovague_Greyling
9. "At my 10-year reunion, the organizers were giving 'awards' for the person who came the farthest to attend, the person with the most kids, etc. The award came up for who had the oldest kid, and people started shouting out their kids' ages. When it quieted down, this shy girl near the front said in a normal voice, 'Eleven.' We all then realized why we'd stopped seeing Heather right before graduation."
10. "The people who were supposed to plan our reunion dropped the ball, so this other dude stepped up. He was in grad school and working at a banquet hall, so his boss offered the space for free. It was a really nice gesture, and he seemed really into it. He had been miserable in high school — grumpy, sullen, unpleasant, and mean. He came out in college, so maybe the weight of keeping his sexuality secret was part of why he was unpleasant. Anyway, he created a Facebook event and asked people to Venmo him the $15–$20 cost of admission prior to attending. I sent him a private message asking what that covered. Food? Drinks? The space was free, after all. He then posted publicly that if the cost was too steep, 'Message [him] to work out financial aid.' What? I then publicly posted asking what the cost covered, and others began asking, too. He said it'd go toward a bartender and server dedicated to the event space, as well as food. OK, fair. Folks, HE WAS THE SERVER."
11. "At my 20-year reunion, two guys got arrested for fist fighting on the sidewalk outside the bar. Why were they fighting? One of the guys slept with the other guy's girlfriend in high school and drunkenly brought up the 20-year-old fling. Neither of them married or even dated her after high school, but 20 years later, those idiots got charged over her."
12. "It's been a decade since I finished school, but I run into an old classmate sometimes when he does maintenance work in my apartment block. About a year ago, he asked if I was going to the reunion. I said no because I couldn't think of anything worse and also hadn't been invited. (Apparently, they organized it over Facebook, which I don't have.) When I next saw him, I asked how the reunion went. He exasperatedly explained that it had been a real shitshow. The mean girls had started planning it together but had a falling out, and then each began planning their own reunion. So there were about four, shitty, tiny, awkward parties, and everyone was confused."
13. "At my five-year reunion, one guy (who was always kind of a marginal figure in high school but a nice person) after some sort of discussion, got his paycheck out and started loudly saying, 'Now do you think I'm a loser?' and 'Don't believe how much I make? Check this out!' Of course, that just made things worse, and everyone laughed at him. I mean, he had his paycheck on him?"
14. "My husband's 10-year reunion was really sloppily slapped together. It was clear that the class was not interested in getting together. The venue kept changing every couple of weeks — updated via the Facebook group, by the way. At first, they were renting a place and getting food catered. However, it's pretty typical in my town for people to not go on to be successful by any means, so asking mostly unemployed or minimum wage workers to cough up $200 to attend didn't work. The venue kept downgrading to accommodate everyone until the reunion turned into a BYOB bonfire by the lake with no attendance fee. Two people showed up: my brother, who was the same year as my husband and had nothing better to do, and another guy who somewhat helped put the reunion together."
"Turns out, throughout the fiasco of finding a venue, a majority of the class declined to go. There was initially a good handful still marked as going on the Facebook page, but with everything changing and people obviously starting to tune out midway through, a lot of people forgot to change their status to not going.
The girl that set the whole thing up was pretty mad about it, and the random guy that helped posted a long rant on the Facebook page about how awful people were and how they should've appreciated the efforts it took just to hold the pathetic gathering.
My husband had refused to go and instead had me sit and flip through the page after everything was said and done. It was pretty obvious the girl was in serious denial the entire time, despite it being pretty clear nobody wanted anything to do with the event." —u/magicrowantree
15. "My 10-year reunion was hosted at a nice hotel banquet hall and had a decent turnout — more than 100 people. There was one guy I'd known all throughout high school who was also a well-known stoner. I'll call him Chris. Chris walks into the banquet hall, stops in his tracks, turns around in a very slow circle, and surveys the entire room. He then says, 'Whoa...' and looks visibly alarmed. Once his eyes settle on me, I say, 'Hey, Chris! Long time no see, man!' He slides over to me and whispers in my ear, 'This is really weird...I'm pretty sure I know every single person in this room.' That's when I realize he's wearing the same clothes as the banquet hall workers. OH MY GOD. CHRIS IS WORKING AS A SERVER AT HIS OWN HIGH SCHOOL REUNION, AND HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS HAPPENING."
"I walk him out to the front lobby and explain it's our 10-year high school reunion. He is mortified and beyond embarrassed. He was never contacted and didn't even realize it had been 10 years since we graduated. He just knew he was working another catering gig in a neverending series of catering gigs.
I make him take me to his manager and explain what's happening. I tell the manager there is NO WAY this guy is working his own high school reunion. Awesomely, the manager agrees. We find a different suit jacket and tie for him, and I take Chris back to the party. He ended up having a good night." —u/Foo-Fighters-Fan
16. "I honestly don't know why I went to my high school reunion. The friends that I kept in touch with, well, I kept in touch with. Regardless, one friend managed to convince me otherwise, so I went. The reunion wasn't bad, but it was mostly people trying their best to one-up each other in their bid to look successful. I sat at a table next to my friend and actually enjoyed catching up with long-forgotten acquaintances. However, I barely recognized one girl. My friend and I kept asking each other if she was in our graduating class or someone's spouse. Turns out, she was in our class and had spent close to $80,000 for cosmetic surgery. She was so proud that nobody could recognize her. She could've been a candidate on Botched, but who was I to pop her bubble?"
17. "Someone confessed to me that I was his 'dream girl' at our reunion. Meanwhile, his date was his fiancé. I barely knew him in high school. Unfortunately for his fiancé, she didn’t know anyone there, and he refused to leave with her. He drunkenly told me, 'I’m not leaving with her; I'm leaving with you.' I told his fiancé to text me when their car was outside. I then whispered, 'Let's go,' to him, walked him out, and put him in her car. I'll never forget the look on his face when he realized who was driving. I said, 'Yeah, that's how tonight is going to end.'"
"They still got married so..." —u/erineestevenson
18. "When I was in seventh grade, this bully, John, grabbed a wool scarf that my mother had knitted for me off of my head. He then threw the scarf into a pile of muddy leaves and jumped on it. When I went home that day, my mother was furious. The scarf was torn and muddy. She made me tell her who did it and then called the school principal to yell at him. The next day, John got pulled into the principal's office and paddled (back when they still paddled kids). At our 50-year reunion, John came up to me and angrily said, 'You got me into trouble in seventh grade!' I got him in trouble?! Worst, 55 years later, he's still mad about it. I said, 'John, you were a dick in high school, and you're still a dick,' and I walked away."
19. "During our reunion, it came out — over alcohol — that a social group of 'cool people' had all been having orgies together during high school...except for one of them. He had always seemed like a core member of the group from the outside, but for some reason, he was never clued in to the fact that all of his friends were fucking each other en masse for basically as long as they've known each other. There was some very eye-opening, loud screaming."
20. "This guy who was so snooty back in high school had arrived late for the dinner portion of our reunion. All of the seats at his old friends' table were already taken, so he sullenly sat down with the likes of us. I took pity on him because most people at the table ignored him and started asking him questions, like how he's fared since graduation. The DJ was blasting music, so everyone was yelling over the table to be heard. I asked him what he was doing now, and he said that he worked at a law firm. I said, 'That's impressive. Are you a lawyer or studying to be a lawyer?' He said that he was 'working on it,' so I asked what he did now at the firm. I kid you not — it was a movie moment. The DJ cut the music so the MC could make an announcement just as this guy — who'd been getting frustrated with my questions — shouted back, 'I'm a mailroom clerk!'"
"Everyone stared. I hate to say this, but accidental justice was served. He was taken down a peg or two by his own hands." —u/OneRaisedBrow
21. "My high school was well funded, so every class has a trust fund for reunions. We originally looked at ballrooms for 1,000 people since we had a class of 850 students and expected plus-ones. But as interest waned, we scaled back. The school's alumni association dispenses the funds based on class size and allotment for the milestone. The reunion ended up being held at a local bar with good food, and 25 alumni showed up — 40 people total including their partners. However, because 150 people had RSVP'd, and the school allotted $50 per person and another $50 per plus-one, the trust gave us $15,000 for the bill. Well, the 40 of us drank and ate our asses off, so the bill came out to $7,500 between food and the rental fee. After the organizer paid the bill, she handed everyone $100 from the envelope. Then, she handed the rest of the envelope to the manager as a tip — so roughly $3,000 for the waitstaff and crew."
"At first, it sucked knowing that so few people actually gave a shit, but the organizer had a smirk on her face the entire night.
It turned out to be pretty memorable and, honestly, not that big of a bummer, but holy shit, people just don't care." —u/Psykerr