The fact that I had not found the ideal man was difficult only when viewed through eyes stuck in the past. I wanted to compensate, on that one night, for the lack of a boyfriend in high school. What about the rest of my life, all that I'd accomplished, totally and proudly on my own-didn't that have validity? It's just that, faced with seeing my old companions, I'd begun to relive the pressures that had been placed on us to "have it all."
Which may explain why less than half my class showed up. The inconvenience of travel must not have been worth the anxiety. But, as fate would have it, no one had had a life that came anywhere near my expectations for them. For every explanation I had to give about the absence of Mr. Right, there was an equally awkward divorce story.
I desperately wanted to dance, but no one asked and I hadn't, in 20 years, found the courage to ask a man. But, rather than leaving in tears, I began to rejoice. I was still the wallflower, watching the most popular girls twirling across the floor while I played the cool observer. The difference was that they no longer had the power to make me feel bad about myself, nor was it in any way important. These people were on the dance floor of my past, slowly waltzing their way out of my future.
--Insurance claims manager, age 40
#5
AFTER INITIALLY disposing my invitation, I finally decided to go to my fifth reunion. I couldn't recall telling anyone of the growing realization that I was gay, but the fact that I was conspicuously without girlfriends during my entire stay at school was cause for considerable razzing and marginal suspicion.
So I had a choice. Keep this part of me hidden by cajoling my friend Janice into clinging to my side and making pretend sexual advances, or go stag and lump it. I'd like to say that I chose the latter of my own free will, but Janice got strep throat at the last minute and couldn't go.
The reunion was held in the auditorium, which only made me more nervous. For four years I could never throw a ball in that damn basket if someone held a gun to my head. Now they seemed laughably low, as if some model trainman had built the auditorium from old Lionel parts. I was pleased to find that I had actually grown taller than almost everyone in the class. Slightly more assured but still nervous, I charged for the bar. After two gin and tonics I began to speak to strangers, some of whom used to be my friends.
I didn't know what to say Should I blithely introduce myself as gay, only state it upon a cross-examination, or avoid the fact altogether? I bravely chose to evade all mention of relationships. Full of the strength of that decision I strode forth into the crowd, ready to rattle on about my little accomplishments.
The first person I met was someone I actually knew pretty well. Her name was Tabitha and she used to be in my home room. She smiled as she glanced at me through a tumbler of lemonade. Our conversation went something like this:
"Davy! Oh my God, look at you. You look so conservative. Putting on airs for ye old classmates perhaps?"
"Just wanted to throw them a curve."
"You're funny. Nobody cares, you know."
"Cares about what?"
"Ooh. Drag it out of me. Cares that you're a perverter of men of course."
I had this mad temptation to throw a basketball at her.
-Computer salesman, age 28
#7
I NEVER ATTENDED a reunion because I'm the type that doesn't join and doesn't go and doesn't go back. But I never thought of not going back just because I was dead. Instead of being rich, successful, not bald if you're male, not fat if you're female, and whatever else makes you a topnotch example of 15 or 20 years well spent, you're just dead. What a reason not to show up.
Some of my brushes with death have been the stuff of bad TV, but once I almost died choking on a shrimp, something Lucille Ball might have done much better. I was at a party a few years before my 25th reunion. I was early--I like to get in, get out at those sorts of things. Unfortunately, I ran into someone I'd gone to high school with and we started chatting.
It was then that I scarfed down the shrimp of the living dead. It was hot. Too hot. And big. Having learned my WASP routines, I didn't spit it out. I swallowed it. Big mistake--maybe it took a second, maybe less, for me to realize I was choking to death. Not a welcomed moment of enlightenment.
Just about the time I was trying to swallow, she asked me, "Have you ever been back for any of the reunions?" I opened my mouth wide and a hideous sound I've never made before or since came out. I always knew I hated high school, but I never knew I hated it that much.
Then she said, "Get your hands up!" and did the Heimlich like a sumo wrestler. Wow, what arms, I thought as the shrimp came obligingly up, and I felt as if I'd passed the last and worst of all my high school exams. Yuck.
Then for one long second when her arms were around me pushing on my sternum, I thought of sunlight and young faces. I remembered gym class, a game of field hockey on a crisp, cold day; and I saw her running down the field, intent on a goal. I was looking at someone filled with life, pushing forward at that precious moment before everything really starts. The best years of my life? No way.
I choked rudely for some time, thinking, How embarrassed can I really be about this? Embarrassed enough, but I figured it was no worse than high school.
--Fashion designer, age 43
Photo: Cheerleader from the past ((c) FPG International)
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