With Facebook, Who Needs a High School Reunion?

By Laura L.

It’s almost summer, and that means many things: Strawberries are in season. Your nearby sno-cone stand is open. Baseball is in full swing (pardon the pun). And you may be planning to attend (or avoid) your high school reunion. Next year marks ten years since graduating high school, so I’m mentally preparing for my reunion. Or I would be, if it weren’t for Facebook.

Page from Excelsior 1968
© John Martz

Facebook, for those living in a technological cave, is one of the many social networks that have cropped up in recent years. It started out with a unique twist—only those in colleges and universities could sign up. Then it opened up to high schools and finally, the general public. With so many people now on Facebook, it’s inevitable that I’d run into people from my past, such as high school classmates.

Running into former classmates is almost always intimidating, unless you’re still hanging out with your best friends from that time. But even if you are, it can be awkward. Mostly because you find yourself looking back on who you were then. I’m not exactly comfortable with that, and I know I’m not alone. I attended an all-girls’ Catholic high school, and I spent my time there feeling perpetually uneasy and trying to fit in—even trying to like Dave Matthews in doing so! (You can pelt me with tomatoes now. In my defense, though, I never referred to him as simply “Dave.”)

Otherwise, high school was full of mostly choir memories, since I spent the last two years of school arriving an hour early for rehearsals. I managed to fit in some sort of a social life, but I never felt like I got to know people on a deeper level. And yet, despite not knowing people on that level, I still know what a good portion of my graduating class is up to now, and for that I can thank (or blame) Facebook.

No longer do we have to wait until our reunion to hear about who got married, who got pregnant, who had kids, and who got divorced. It’s right there on the screen along with changed names, status updates, and comments on your Super Wall. The drawback to all of this is that you can no longer make up some vaguely plausible story about being the person who invented the Post-It, or these days, the iPhone. Sure, you could still put that in your Facebook profile, but since these people actually knew you and probably know someone else who would spill the beans, that’s not going to fly.

No, you’re going to have to admit to your horrifying reality, whatever it may be, although you can try to paint a prettier picture. I tell people “I’m a grad student” (which I am) rather than “I work a horribly crappy job” (which is also true). No one wants to hear about your car accident, your life failures, or how you nearly flunked out of college. For now, you must smile, or at least use the smiley-face emoticon. I never thought I’d have to fake it before 2009, but here I am, doing it (somewhat) willingly!

So, with the popularity of the Internet and social networking, why bother having high school reunions at all? Let’s be honest—photos do not do justice when it comes to changes in appearance. Seeing one in person vs. seeing one in a flatteringly-angled, conveniently-cropped, Photoshopped image makes quite a difference, plus schadenfreude probably smells a lot sweeter at an actual reunion.

Perhaps Facebook’s biggest drawback is that it does not have a bar. You can get drunk while surfing Facebook, but not while dancing to “Love Shack” with your former classmates. (Yes, “The Macarena” was also popular back in the day, but just thinking about it induced nausea.)

I also don’t think any of the nuns from my school have Facebook profiles. Imagine those boring status updates. “Sister Esmerelda is saying ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. Yeah, it was that kinda weekend!” And finally, there’s the crush factor. I went to an all-girls’ school so there’s no chance of seeing that guy I swooned over at the reunion, but he’s on my Facebook friends list, somewhere.

Llike many social networking tools, Facebook both satisfies curiosity AND increases our appetite for more information. Did Sarah ever become an opera singer? Is Molly ever going to finish her Ph.D? Is Katie really as happy as she lets on? The list goes on. Yet Facebook can never replace the in-person experience—good and bad—of a flesh and blood high school reunion. However, for those who swear they’ll never go to a reunion but are curious about their former classmates, information is just a friend request away!