Here's a Top 5 of Don'ts for a High School Reunion:
1.) Don't have the Reunion in the big city connected to your suburban city but 30 miles away from the high school so that people who stayed local are disincentivized from making it.
2.) Don't have the Reunion cost $50 per person (even though there was free drinks and free food) thus disincentivizing people from making it.
3.) Dont' expect too much out a high school reunion in this day and end. I gotta imagine with facebook and social media and all kinds of internet resources, it's much easier than it was even 20 years ago to reconnect with people that you actually want to talk to. For example, 25 people showed up to my high school reunion (out of a 400 person class, so like 6% of the class) and I really talked to like 6 different people. I had a much more enjoyable time reconnecting with college and high school friends that I've been in contact with this whole time.
4.) Don't expect that much change. 10 years after high school, people or still.....kind of like they were in high school. The social groups stuck together, people ignored me like the plague cuz I was sort of a nerd in high school (still am, but feel like I can really hold a conversation and be fun to talk to, o well chance missed for them), and everyone wanted to hang out with the cool people/ prom queens from high school. I get it, as adults we choose our company and expect other adults to understand the implicit "I don't really have time for you guys, no offense but we won't talk at all after this so why even bother" kind of vibe, but it still seemed somewhat disappointing that even as adults there are social hierarchies, isolation, talk-to-cool-people vibe. I'd thought as adults we were past that, but maybe it's just an uncool guy like me, desperate for acceptance, getting those feelings. Maybe all the people who've figured it out just realized the high school reunion is something to skip entirely. O well.
I had a great time this weekend visiting Soldier Field (even though the Bears got routed), running down Clark Avenue after reunion through the Saturday night Chicago nightlife, driving down lake shore on an awesome 70 degree day in Chicago, yachts peppering the Lake Michigan skyline. Every time I come back to the city that I grew up in (about twice a year for various activities like weddings, friend reunions, high school reunions, etc.) I wonder what it would have been like to like in Chicago as an adult ( I grew up in the suburbs so never really even enjoyed downtown Chicago other than school field trips). Especially in the summer, it feels like every mile of the Lake Shore can be explored, the only thing longer than the days is the expansive architecture down the Chicago River, and the people are nicer! And I can organize a poker game with my high school buddies any weekend I want, and recreate our last year of high school as if they're still going on, like we're 18 again and we all had bright futures ahead of us, had all the potential in the world (something I felt nostalgic about at our reunion poker game this weekend. At this point it's not about the poker and winning or trying to beat other guys at the game, the real winning is to get everybody at the table and at the game. Winning is the time we spend together and can reminisce about. It's much better than any $50 cover, not-even-in-the-city-of-our-high school reunion can offer.
But then I remember the proverb both Japanese and English include in their repertoire:
隣の芝は青い" (Tonari no Shiba wa Aoi), or "The grass is greener on the other side." It always is, isn't it? No matter what you have (my health, a great family, a decent job, living in one of the best cities in the world), you always wonder if something else is better, you look at other options. For me my 3 years in college at University of Illinois after high school and the last 7 years in Los Angeles through law school and my years in the legal profession can never be replaced, and knowing what I know now I have some regrets, but not the overall decision to choose this path. I never would have known what I would have missed had I not chosen this path, and there might have a completely different, awesome life for me back in Chicago, but this one's not so bad and I'm glad I'm in it.
Plus, I might never have discovered dodgeball had I been in Chicago. L.A. is the hotbed of dodgeball, has some of the best players in dodgeball, and is close to Las Vegas, the unofficial site for all national dodgeball (and recently, world dodgeball) events. I have easy access to some of the biggest dodgeball events in the world, and I can even participate and play in some of them.
I love Chicago, but it'll always be just the second city in my heart; L.A., I think I'm in love with you!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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