Posted on 05/17/2014 5:18:03 PM PDT by windcliff
Facebook killed my high school reunion .
In a way, the high school reunion is as unashamedly American as apple pie and Chevrolet. Go on — ask your parents if they had one. I’d wager that the majority of them would say that they did, and in fact, they probably retain quite a few memories. Someone was shockingly large; someone was stunningly beautiful; someone had completely fallen off of the wagon. The high school reunion’s primary allure was the possibility — nay, the probability — of a few shockers, coupled with the underlying desire to show up and impress the folks who ragged on you with devilish persistence back in the day. Seeing anyone, let alone someone you once spent a great deal of time with, after a decade of absence is sure to be an interesting occasion.
Unfortunately for this generation, such a spectacle is nearly impossible to still find.
For as wonderful as Facebook is at keeping us connected to souls we’d otherwise lose contact with, it also removes the allure of “catching up.” For friends who refresh the site as frequently as the majority of users, it’s fairly easy to keep track of highlights from all of your friends’ lives. Facebook has made it impossible to see a connected friend 10 years later and feel as if any time has passed. Some would argue that’s a boon, but it single-handedly destroyed my high school reunion.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes, it was beauty killed the beast"
I wouldn’t attend anyway.
Highschool for me was not dramatic, traumatic, or in any way unpleasant..... It just WAS.
I live in the present, with necessary forays into the future. Highschool is in my (distant) past. There is no reason for me to live even a tiny piece of it again.
I’m going to a high school reunion this summer and it will probably be ruined because just about everyone will probably have their faces in their smartphones...checking Facebook.
I can’t remember if it was my 20th or 25th reunion that was coming up, but I recall getting a questionnaire in the mail asking various questions. One of the questions was, “Who did you most want to do the horizontal bop with?”. I found it amazing that many of the people I went to school with still hadn’t grown up. I pitched it in the trash and never looked back.
After you had your hands amputated?
I feel the same way. No interest in seeing those I last saw in 1959.
My step daughter said that to me last week. I unplugged the wireless router and then said to her, “First world problems.”
Three places I have always wanted to avoid: prison, a nursing home, and high school. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
See big or small, human relations is what are the most meaningful.
My class mates and I keep up via email (used to be snail mail, though I get on a writing kick every now and again and still send out the occasional letter) and other ways but nothing is so good as just sitting there, looking around the table at the faces of people who know me. We don’t have to say a thing. We all understand
I haven’t been to a single reunion even though I’m still in the same town. Don’t have any reason to use Facebook. Generally cross to the other side of the street or just ignore them if I see someone I know.
Not quite that bad.
Four people I can think of.
And one guy who was a year ahead of me.
There would be a fifth, but his pilot splatted him on a mountainside in Nevada few years after we graduated.
Bookmark
That’s my experience, too. Who would have expected that I would be one of the approximately 10% of my friends who turned out conservative? Facebook, where I’m a vocal conservative, distanced me from my closest high school friends by shining a bright light on our fundamental differences. I’m convinced this would have been far less likely a generation ago.
I look back and fond I have nothing in common with anyone I graduated with.
I missed the first 10 year reunion. I would not have gone to it anyway.
20 year, the wife insisted I go.
30 year the wife insisted I go.
40 I didn’t go even though the reunion was less than a mile away.
50, They will have an all school reunion. My brother and sister WILL NOT go. I may just to prove I am still alive and doing better than many of them.
I should have graduated Carlsbad NM High School but my dad grabbed us and dragged us kicking and screaming to the Ozarks for the last two years of schooling.
fond=found
“. I may just to prove I am still alive and doing better than many of them.”
—
At a 50 year reunion who cares whether you’re doing better than many of them——and how on earth would you know that?
.
Part of the social media the 'Rats have been using to kick our a**es since 2007, just as they've been using pop culture to do so for 60 years. It's where today's young people -- those who are going to be running this nation after you're too old to do anything about it -- are getting their news and information. It's how things get done today, while techno-Luddites and crypto-Pubbies, who pine for the good old days of "Firing Line" and Bob Grant on the radio, diminish its importance.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, et al, are here to stay. Pooh-pooh them at your peril, and at the peril of the conservative movement.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
***who cares whether you’re doing better than many of them***
It’s simple. In a class were everyone was inbread to everyone else, except me, I NEVER adapted to their hillbilly culture, and did well in an area where most people can’t make over minimum wage.
Plus I have met most of the REALISTIC goals I set out to achieve.
And I am kin to NO ONE here as I married a girl from Dallas TX.
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