Facebook ruined my ten year high school reunion. (And I'm only mildly exaggerating for effect.)
Last Friday, as old classmates trickled into a bar a few blocks north of our all-girls Catholic alma mater, I quickly realized social media had spoiled any potential Romy & Michele reveal.
The "cocktail party" at a sushi and billiards themed "lounge" in Tampa brought '03 graduates from my school and the all-boys school together to slap on all-you-can-drink wristbands and reunite over plastic tumblers of vodka soda. Only about a dozen from each school showed up. I hadn't been in the same room with many of them in a decade, but I'd certainly "seen" them since we graduated.
Their weddings, baby showers, beach vacations, inspirational quotes and most photogenic meals have blown up Facebook since it debuted our freshman year in college and turned us all into recreational stalkers.
I already knew who got married, divorced, pregnant or out of the closet. I knew who got really into taking selfies or selling Mary Kay or dressing their cat up in costumes. I had already "liked" their honeymoon pics and adorable babies wearing Santa hats.
There were next to no surprises. In fact, everyone who attended looked pretty fantastic and acted perfectly normal. Sure, some of the small talk was painful and there was a solid seven minutes when I couldn't recognize a guy who warmly said hello and asked about my siblings by name. But, beyond a few awkward conversations, the whole thing was simply uneventful. Hardly even blogable.
I'm not sure what I was expecting. I suppose the movies made me hope for dramatic redemption. Like the nerdy girl would now be a supermodel CEO or the jerk who rejected my invitation to Christmas Formal would show up with adult acne. (He didn't come and according to Facebook he got better looking, dammit).
The night didn't exactly deliver, but I'm glad I went. After being away from Tampa for so long it felt good to be surrounded by my past. I reminisced with girls I'll always love about the moments we'll never forget- like when we were forced to hear an abstinence is best speech that compared our virginity to a new shoe or the time we filled the school's 200-year-old fountain with bubbles.
10 or 50 years later, no matter how boring the reunions, I'll be a proud Academy girl for life.
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