On High School Reunions

My ten-year high school reunion took place this weekend. Although there were more people there than I had expected, including people I was in fact pleased to see, it still turned out to be a boring evening. I knew these people ten years ago and have not spoken to most of them since - I felt like I spent the night making small talk with strangers. Probably it is my lack of curiousity about other people that is the problem, and not that the people from my graduating class are actually boring.

There were the usual ten-year role reversals: a girl from my senior year English class, who had been overweight and afflicted with dandruff, had grown six inches (she was tall to begin with) and lost fifty pounds. She now looks like a runway model. Whereas the popular girl - who had been tall, blonde, and athletic - is still tall and blonde, but has gained fifty pounds and looks like a diner waitress, which, coincidentally, is what she now is. Just like an '80s movie.

And where did I fit in? People knew who I was in high school, but I didn't run with the popular kids. (This may sound snide, but: thank goodness.) Someone came up to me at the reunion and said, "You know, I predicted that the odd-looking girls would now be hot and the cute girls would no longer be cute. And it's true - look at you." I honestly didn't know whether he meant that I was now hot, or now no longer cute. Of course, it didn't help that the rest of the night people kept telling me that I look exactly the same.