Wednesday, May 25, 2011

High School Reunions and Statistics

Recently I've been exposed to an ongoing conversation regarding my 20th High School Reunion.  Thanks Facebook Groups for the spam!
When the Facebook Event was created and I was sent along a message asking me if I were attending (Yes, No, or Maybe) I quickly, and gleefully, clicked on No.  To be clear to my readers, I currently live in my hometown and really have nothing going on in my life, so distance and time were definitely not a factor in this decision.

I've read quite a few messages essentially saying "Can't wait to be there and find out how everyone's been doing!!!".  Really?  Are there people like that still, even in my generation?  I understand it when my grandmother talks about catching up with her friends from school.  There was nothing else going on back then.  That was the age when people actually knew their neighbors.  I don't talk to my neighbors (but to be fair that's because the majority of my neighbors are related to me.)  I'm not the most social of persons but I'm hardly a wallflower and still it surprises me that anyone my age would be remotely excited to visit with people whom they hardly spoke to half their life ago.

If you're still curious why I would never go, I'll break it down for you.

Of a class of 257 students.
People who I would legitimately like to see: 9 (3%)
People that I'd put up with a few minutes of small talk: 21 (8%)
Completely Awkward Encounters: 5 (2%)
People I greatly dislike and would hate to even see from half a room away: 15 (6%)
People who I absolutely do not care about: 207 (81%)

Those figures of course assume that the people who I'd like to see would even attend.  So, in a random group of 4 other people, I'd likely end up having to talk to 3 people who I've never talked to at all in my life and perhaps someone who I shared a class with once and didn't completely despise.

Says hypothetical random female friend: "So, Dan, why aren't you going to your twentieth high school reunion?"

My reply: "Statistics my dear, statistics."

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