Why I left my reunion after 45 minutes

So I wasn’t able to make the big reunion, but the pre-reunion Friday night thing was in my budget. So I figured I would give it a try. I lasted about 45 minutes, realized I was bored out of my mind, and went home. This is not because my alumni are boring people. Far from it. However, the people that showed were not the people I ever hung out with. These were not the people I wanted to catch up with. Nothing against the people that were there. I’m sure they’re ok people. I just have zero in common with them. We have no common interests. There is just simply nothing to talk about. No mark on them for this. We are just different types of people.

Reunions are still cliquish
Now everyone’s high school is cliquish to say the least. We would all like to think we are above that as adults, but this just isn’t true. However, is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. I think it’s reality. We no longer segregate by color in this country (which is a very good thing), but yet notice how often people do this naturally? It’s because of common interests. Just because two people have nothing to say to each other, doesn’t mean they have any negative thoughts about each other. They just have nothing to talk about. So they gravitate to people with common interests. Now the 3 ladies that run our reunions work like mad to try to include everyone. However, there are some that are so scarred from high school that they never give the reunions a chance. I have a feeling that many of those people are the exact people I want to catch up with! Since they can’t be encourged to give the reunion thing a chance, I end up a wallflower, get bored quickly, and go home early.

Is there a solution?
I think the way to solve this problem is on it’s way. Us outcasts love the internet. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, etc, we are on most if not all of them. Facebook does a great job at connecting all of these people. If we can use this tool more to get more people to break down their walls we can get them to show up. There is one piece missing though to make this tool work. There needs to be an easier way to mark how you know someone on Facebook. I just went into my account to separate people into lists of how I know them. There are a ton of people who I have no clue how or why they are on there. I don’t have a clue how I know them. Maybe they are spammers who somehow caught me in a gullible mood one day? So should I delete them? What if they are old high school classmates who are trying to make a connection? There needs to be a simple note Facebook puts in the list that says “You know this person from: High School”. Keep it simple though. I know people from either the music industry, high school, social networking on these inner-webs, or in real life. So maybe HS, web-friend, IRL Friend, and music can be choices people can pick from if they are my friend on Facebook. They pick how I know them from choices I create and pick.

Why not the official website?
Now our alumni association has an official website, but the people that really need to be reached out to are not going to sign up to that. Currently Facebook is the best tool we have for this mission. So we need to work it hard to get the “anti-social” people like me to come out of their shells and give this thing a chance. So maybe by next reunion we can have more people show up? Maybe we can have people show up that have never been to a reunion ever before? I think we can do it. I don’t want to miss my reunion, but I’d like to have someone of interest to talk to when I go.

If you are my friend on Facebook, can you tell me how we know each other? It’s driving me nuts. Thanks.