Nicole Tasker Woods

Unless I show up and my high school class reunion is JUST like Romy & Michelle’s, then no way in hell will I ever go.

I did not have a great time in high school. It’s hard to remember the good times when the bad times inflate like balloons in my memory, suffocating everything that didn’t suck. Thus I only remember the bad…

• being fat
• eating alone in the lunch room
• hiding out in the nurse’s station at lunch time to avoid eating alone in the lunch room
• having no friends freshman year
• having two good friends from sophomore year through senior year, but “breaking up” with them after graduation over something petty, but apparently it’s unforgivable now so the friendship can not be salvaged
• getting barked at by my first ex-boyfriend’s posse every time I went to biology class my sophomore year

Believe me, I could go on and on, but what’s the point? The only people who enjoy going to class reunions are one of the following:

• One of the popular kids who is still friends with people from high school
• One of the un-popular kids who has a few close friends from high school and will only go if they can go as a group with those friends
• One of the loaners who still lives locally and is just hoping to get laid
• One of the losers that now has some wonderful success story and wishes only to shove it in everyone’s face

Well, that’s my take on it anyway. When someone asked me recently if I was going to our 10 year class reunion this year (which is the Saturday after Thanksgiving) I felt like saying something along the lines of:

“Why on earth would I shell out $500 in airfare to fly out and go to a stupid dinner at a lame restaurant with a bunch of people that DID NOT want to be my friends back in high school? If I was not cool enough for them 10 years ago, why on earth would I be cool enough for them now?”

However, I did not say that; instead my reply was, “No, I am not planning on going.”

The girl who asked me was (of course) one of the popular girls. Super pretty and super smart and one of the star basketball athletes. Everything she touched turned to gold and everything she said sounded so cool. I remember feeling honored whenever she said hi to me. And she did most of the time because in the end, she was a very nice girl, but it’s not like she ever asked me to hang out with her and the rest of her friends (who I went to pre-school with, btw). I think I totally missed out on being in her clique because after growing up with them at pre-school together, I went to a private, Christian school for K-8 and they all went to the public school. By the time high school came around, we knew each other’s names, but that’s it. We were nice to one another, but it was one of those moments where it was too late to start up a brand new friendship. It just wasn’t going to happen.

And I’m not so naive that I think that the people in my class are the same as they were in high school. I’m certainly not as introverted or shy or fat like I was 10 years ago. But the one rule I have with social outings these days is I refuse to go if the only person I know is the host. In this instance, I don’t know these people at all. And my biggest fear and most likely prediction is that I will end up going and will be lost in a corner somewhere while everyone else is chit-chatting and having a good time. I’m sure my living status in California and my job in the film industry would bring some ooh’s and aah’s but nothing like Sandy Frink landing in a helicopter and owning homes all over the world because he invented some kind of rubber that is used in every tennis shoe in North America. No, I think not.