I have never been to any of my high school reunions, and in my opinion it may be a tradition best left to end its time and go peacefully into the annals of nostalgia. Especially with social media and live chat options, there is no need for folks of any age to travel unnecessarily for an event requiring stays in hotels of uncertain quality (if not camping out in your old bedroom at your parents’ place). Also, do you want to spend days eating at joints which sprang up well after your favorite hangouts in town went belly up? And what about the expense of carting your personal human circle along with you (especially if they did not attend your alma mater and won’t know a soul).
The five-year reunion, overall, seems to be an opportunity to brag about graduating college, or marrying the love of your life and/or delivering the two kids you said you would in the yearbook. At ten and twenty years, most people have set up their lives and mingle with a tightly controlled group of friends, and they may attend just to sit around and grab a drink or two while reminiscing about old flames, older scandals, the ignorance of youth and the disaster that is approaching three or four decades of existence.
At the thirty, forty and fifty year marks, people are starting to experience the added pains of age, loss and empty nests. Yes, we go through with it, and yes we all share talking about it. Why pay airfare and hotel fees to do that when you can get together in Zoom for pennies on the already-strained dollar?
And then there are reunions from Hell like the one a writer referred to as “Really Invisible in Minnesota” experienced in Dear Abby’s March 6, 2025 column. She attended her fiftieth with her husband, both of whom went to the same school. They share this tradition every time, and at every reunion she has the same problem: everybody in her graduating class acts cordially to the husband, but they treat her like a leper. “I’ll be the first to admit I’m nothing to look at,” Really Invisible felt compelled to add, and we soon find out why: her classmates would glare and walk away whenever she attempted to be sociable. She even overheard one approach another group and say, “The dog tried to talk to me.”
The husband is also, according to her letter, a real humdinger of a supportive spouse, one for whom social media women’s advocate Robbie Harvey would have a few choice words. When she confronted him about her mistreatment and wanted to know why he even married her, he gaslit her, saying, “It’s all in your head.”
These are all supposedly mature adults in their 60s! What on God’s green Earth is wrong with them?
I have been too hardened by this sort of thing to outwardly cry, but inside of me, while reading this, my heart broke for this unfortunate lady. She said nothing of whether her marriage is loving or even affirming of her self-worth, but the evidence says otherwise. Why would everybody be (and over fifty years, have been) so vicious to this individual?
What is the husband gaining from being married to her? Why do the classmates feel it’s acceptable to continue to call a human being a “dog” because of what is obviously a combination of genetic outliers beyond her control? And what sort of horrific conspiracy is going on that nobody feels compelled to say one kind word about this poor woman?
Really Invisible will remain anonymous, as will her tormentors, all of whom I feel should be utterly ashamed of their behavior, lack of basic human kindness and hypocritical demeanor (Abby agreed). I would enjoy getting answers from the perpetrators as to why their treatment of Really Invisible is warranted (it would make a great research story), and I would like to hear from the husband on why he doesn’t tend to the emotional and spiritual needs of the wife he chose to marry, and why he need not hold up to his responsibility to her. Unfortunately that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life very often.
So I will close with this to those reunion dolts and that pathetic excuse of a spouse. As we go through our later years, we often find ourselves in turmoil and experiencing pain and suffering through events happening around us that directly affect our lives. Occasionally we ask ourselves, “What have I done to deserve this?” The answer is right here in this column. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.
Really Invisible is owed a huge apology by every one of you. She has a good soul. Yours needs fixing.
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