As an
Old Geezer Without A Life, I enjoy getting to
surf around to various
high school alumni websites, where you're supposed to
sign up, enter your
e-mail address and some info about what a
mess you've made of your life, and, in
theory, be deluged by messages from old
classmates, all eager to renew
acquaintances/
friendships/
romances.
Of course, I nearly never get
mail from any of those old alumni -- no
surprise, because I've only rarely
sent e-mail to anyone on those lists either, and when I have, I usually
regret it afterwards. Who wants to learn that your former
best friend has become a
raving crackhead, or that your
ex-girlfriend (and her
insanely-jealous husband) hates your guts for
imagined slights, or even that the
class beauty is still just as
shallow as she ever was? Hell, more than likely,
they don't want to see what a
pushead you've turned out to be, either...
But
hope springs eternal, and after finding a new name on those lists, it seems to take a
herculean effort on my part to keep from sending them e-mail. But when the
temptation seems too great, I just have to
remember three little
episodes...
1. Sending a note to the lovely and talented Karen, who I admired from afar in all of our classes, and receiving a reply stating that she always thought I was creepy and she didn't want to hear from me again...
2. Sending a note to Alan, who I was friends with from fourth grade to graduation, and receiving a reply stating that he couldn't correspond with me unless I promised to become a Born Again Christian...
3. Sending a note to Charlotte, my date to the junior prom, and receiving a reply stating that she really wasn't sure she could remember who I was...After remembering those moments of
horror and
humiliation (God, it's like
high school never ended, ain't it?), it becomes much easier to
resist the temptation to
write.
And then I disconnect the keyboard, just to make sure...