Are school and college reunions good for us? Or do they just confront us with uncomfortable past versions of ourselves and others, keeping us trapped in old, unhealthy patterns?Donna Cavalli, Michigan
Send new questions tonq@theguardian.com.
Hmm, welllook what happened to Friends Reunited.Wiretrip
Can we discuss this question again in 10 years?JonathanBaldwinAgain
Maybe. If it reawakens happy memories and lets you reconnect with people you genuinely got on with but had lost track of and a friendship or two is rekindled then yeah, it’ll be good for you.
If it reawakens memories of a bad time in your life and nobody else you actually ever liked turns up it’s going to be a melancholy waste of time.IrishIain
Reunions are for catching-up with people you haven’t stayed in touch with, which means there are three possible outcomes: disappointment, envy and sex. These are not mutually exclusive. There’s also the opportunity to express joy/sadness/indifference (delete as applicable) at learning which students, parents and teachers have passed away and how, which is dangerous ground to be on for all sorts of reasons.Dorkalicious
Given that I was at school with Nigel Farage, I shall not be going to any reunion for fear that he might turn up!Teamhead
I grew up in New Jersey. My high school class was 500 strong. We’ve held reunions every 10 years since graduating in 1972. It’s unbelievable how close some of us still are – we stay in touch on social media and messenger. I’m living in Europe now and welcome my high school mates to come over and enjoy my current home and surrounds. Nice to keep in touch!Karen Kristian, by email
No. If they were such good mates you would’ve stayed in touch. If there is someone that slipped through the cracks you should be able to find someone who knows them or the actual person by going online. You can reach out from there and see what happens.catchytitled
I have gone to my law school reunion every five years for the last 40 and enjoy it more each time. I wasn’t the most popular or the smartest person at school but I had a lot of really lovely classmates and so my time at school – perhaps unlike those of many others – was a pleasure.
When I go back I find that the people I was close to, I am still close to and I really enjoy seeing them again and catching up. The people whom I never really knew in the hustle and bustle of school are also such a pleasure to get to know now.
When we are younger we make so many assumptions about people and that gets in the way of friendship and appreciation. Now, 40 years later, we know that the things that we worried about back then – career success, status, money – don’t mean as much as we thought it did and it’s a pleasure to see people we knew at one time and enjoy their company.GreenforDanger
My classmates are the closest thing that I will ever have to sisters. We grew up together, from the ages of 11 to 18, saw each other through our worst teenager angst, spots, hairstyles, crazes, relationships. When we left our all-girls grammar school in the 1970s we were all desperate to escape and escape we did – yet somehow those amazing connections have bought me back to these now amazing and inspirational women who mean so much to me and complete me.
Now that we are that much older those friendships have become even more precious – not just for the girls we were but especially so for the women we are now.Name supplied, by email
I haven’t been to a reunion but I have run into various people from secondary school when coming back home from abroad and the experience tends to go as follows:
What have you been up to, Miffled?Moved around Europe a lot, finally settled in NL 10 years ago.Oh you smoke weed and stuff then over there?Nah, not really. Not my scene.So why did you move?I just like travelling, I guess. Wanted to explore. You still based here?Yeah, never left. Never would.[Mutual awkward staring]See you.See you.
Based on that, I would really not bother with a reunion.MiffledKitty
Going to one that I partly instigated, a 40th anniversary of graduating from university for our subject. It will be interesting to see where people ended up. So it’s a mixture of seeing if you easily reconnect with people and a blind date.
I think that university reunions probably work better as you chose where to go and what to do and the people you associated with, unlike school. People I got on with from that period I still do, and it can almost feel like we last spoke yesterday when we meet up.OliversTravels
I’ve attended two of my high school reunions (class of 1959), and though I haven’t been to the last one, the earlier ones were very memorable because we discovered that wealllook older, which is a very humbling experience that we should all be grateful for. Now in our 80s we can also be grateful that other people knew us when we were shining, fresh and bright, and with whom we now very intimately share the personal history of a whole generation.RPOrlando, by email
Yes, but with a few caveats. Don’t expect to make new friends. Passing acquaintances will remain so – unless you discover a shared interest in extreme ironing, or similar. Large dinners are a lousy idea. Keep things small and personal and don’t work too hard at providing a wonderful venue. It’s the opportunity to talk in relaxed surroundings that counts.Eric Boa, by email
I hated school and have no friends from my school days. Sounds like hell.Shots1992
I went to a reunion once, where I only met people I wasn’t interested in while I was still at school, and I wasn’t interested in them after all those years. Naturally I was hoping to see all those wonderful girls I’d been to scared to say something to, but sadly they’d all got married and now had boring lives.Johan van Slooten, the Netherlands, by email
I went to a high school reunion in my 30s, and while I appreciate the efforts of the organisers, for me it was a meaningless event. I never enjoyed school, and had left my home town at 19 to study in London. The night felt like an odd dream. I wore a gorgeous tatty 1950s gown that I’d picked up for a tenner at a festival, drank a lot of whisky, and felt vaguely panicky. People I didn’t remember kept asking me what I was doing these days, and there was a lot of inevitable talk about jobs and families and kids, which was all quite repetitive and dull. Everyone was nice enough, but the peculiar mix of curiosity and competition was a noticeable undercurrent. All very parochial. I’d never go to another one.liz7evans
I’ve never been to a full-scale school reunion, but even among old classmates who weren’t close friends, I’ve got a good idea of who’s got married, divorced, had children, come out, emigrated. Some even let me know where they’ve been for dinner recently. I guess social media has killed the element of surprise. Friends reunited, indeed …EddieChorepost
Our school reunion after 45 years was mostly a success. Old hatreds flared round only one particularly disliked ex-head boy. At least one group reignited their sixth-form camaraderie with a curry afterwards.
For most people it was a proper closure of that chapter of their lives. Their original school leaving after final examinations had been overshadowed by a new vista of adult freedom that was hard to conceive.techie272
I don’t even really remember being at school – always baffled by conversations about something we did one Tuesday morning 40 years ago …GCday
There is no amount of money that I could be offered to go to these events. High school was seven years of poverty and awful, often cruel teachers, and this at an esteemed school which is centuries old. I also refuse to join any alumni societies or to donate even a penny, when they come around with their begging bowls. I will give anything I can to my former primary school which was run by kind and caring nuns.Janubian
My dad was a wise old owl. I asked him once when he was still active in the Royal Naval Reserve if he ever went to the British Legion Club.
“Blimey no, they’ve all still got their tin hats on.” Miserable lot, he reckoned. A “do” at the “Battery” as it was called, fine, those reunions, not on your nelly.bricklayersoption
My mother, aunts, uncle, brother, sister and some cousins all went to the same school. While I have fond memories growing up in this small town where most of us were related and everyone knew each other, school was different. After my grandparents were gone, the large family reunions faded away. Some of us left for the big city. The town school has an all-class reunion every year which my mother enjoyed going to when she reached her late 80s and 90s. My class this month has a 50th-year reunion which I am not attending. Once I left I never really looked back. The song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat comes to mind.dallastxhollywood
Going back to secondary school after 30 years was great. It got rid of hang-ups, forgiving those frail old teachers, happy for how life had turned out for classmates. It was very valuable for a couple of lads who had been expelled.
I took an assembly at my primary school 50 years after it had opened. I felt I could sit crossed-leg with the children. They looked the same!
And as university had been a three-year holiday camp, going back after 40 years was starting the party again. I don’t need to return to any of them again. Those chapters are complete.gedparker
The trouble is that the only thing you’ve got in common is being at school, and once you’ve relived a few memories that’s it. I found the same thing with someone I worked with 15 years ago. We met up a couple of times and all we had to talk about was people we used to work with. So dull, and afterwards I had dreams about work.Goldgreen