Should You Go to Your School Reunion?

Is it that time again? Reunion time? Are you struggling with a clash between "should I stay or should I go" to your class reunion?

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Is it that time again? Reunion time? Time for those messages that begin with:

"We can't believe it's been [insert some multiple of five here] years since we [graduated, finished, left, or fled] our [insert name of the high school, college, graduate school, professional school, ninja strikeforce training program, or whatever]. Join us on [date] at [location] to reconnect and [recall, relive, or stop suppressing] all those memories."

Going to the reunion could be either a no-brainer or a no, no, hell no for you. Alternatively, it could be a clash between Should I stay? and Should I go? If you are not yet set to go, some of the following 10 concerns could be holding you back:

1. Will you get too little attention? It's the age-old fear of spending most of the time standing in the corner next to the punch bowl rereading your name tag over and over again, even though, spolier alert, your name will remain the same each time.
2. Will you get too much attention? On the flip side, what if you did something at some point that may attract a streak of much-unwanted attention, such as, "Hey, weren't you the one running across the field at the Super Bowl without a helmet, pads or any clothes on for that matter?"
3. Will you revert to how you were back in your school days? Maybe you weren't exactly proud of who you were back then: that naive, confused, undeveloped person whose only trip to second base at the time was on an actual baseball field.
4. Will the reunion dredge up painful memories? Your school years could have been marked by embarrassing, maybe even devastating memories, some of which may have involved you sporting a mullet.
5. Will you encounter someone you'd like to avoid? Maybe it's your version of a Biff Tannen or Regina George, that person who treated your heart like a toilet cake, the one that got away, or perhaps the one that unfortunately didn't.
6. Will you not measure up professionally or personally and be judged by others? OK, so your kickboxing career didn't quite pan out as you and that guy in the 1988 movie Say Anything thought it would and you don't have those 2.5 kids you planned on having.
7. Will you be reminded of how old you are? This won't be like Tinder where you can pretend to be younger than your actual age. Plus, some classmates with the emotional intelligence of a cinder block may say stuff like, "Gee, you really aged."
8. Will there be a lot of uncomfortable small talk? OK, you may not be able to walk up to someone you haven't seen in decades and immediately say deep things like, "What is your biggest fear? Let's discuss what Plato meant when he said 'Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.'"
9. Will you not match your image? What if people realize your carefully crafted image of a social media butterfly is hiding the fact that you are indeed a caterpillar?
10. Will you be wasting your time? Are you worried that the time and effort spent will take you away from important endeavors, such as maintaining that fruitcake bakery or keeping up with what the Kardashians are doing?

Are you worried about getting too little attention during the reunion?

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Well, remember the following 10 things:

1. Other people may be just as scared or insecure as you. Unless you went to some kind of school for mannequins, robots, or sociopaths, your classmates should have the same imperfectly human fears that you have.
2. You may not be the same as you were in school. Adapting what Gloria Gaynor sang in "I Will Survive," you're not that chained-up little person stuck in whatever emotions and thoughts you had back then.
3. Others may not be the same as they were in school. Similarly, others may have changed after they gained more experience, wisdom, and confidence and life kicked them more than once.
4. Your memories may deceive you. You know when you perceive that blemish on your face to look like a Jackson Pollock painting even though others barely notice it? Well, maybe the same applies to what you thought were embarrassing or disastrous moments in school.
5. You may not know what others were thinking back then. When people mistreated you, it may have been because they themselves were struggling with their own insecurities and other stuff.
6. You don't know what's happening with everyone's lives behind the scenes. Comparing yourself to others when you know only a small fraction of their lives can be like comparing entire wardrobes when you can see only a single leg warmer or arm ruffle. Even well-researched biographies may not uncover all that people had to do and sacrifice to get where they are.
7. Life is about trade-offs. Don't have a spouse, a family, or what you consider to be a high-flying job? Well, in the words of William Wallace from Braveheart, maybe that means they'll never take your freedom to do other things.
8. You could get to know new people. Heck, that person who never seems to have anything to report for the Class Notes could turn out to be the most interesting person in the world.
9. It will be a learning experience. As they say, experience is often something you get right after you need it. So, why not take a more preemptive strike at another growth opportunity?
10. What is there to lose? It's not like something super high stakes is on the line, such as who you are going to take to prom.

Besides realizing all of the above and letting go of expectations, there are additional things that you can do to get past any concerns. For example, how about connecting with classmates before the reunion or even helping plan the reunion? Doing so can help you ease into things and ensure that at least someone will talk to you.

Also, don't go into the reunion believing you have something to prove. Forget the flex, and, instead, be open to being more vulnerable. The latter is often what builds connections.

Finally, maintain the proper perspective. A friend of mine once said, "Life is about who you meet." It also is short and often unpredictable. So why not treat the reunion like a butter pat, just throw it up and see where it sticks?