Reunions

The kind with your ex-schoomates. Redundant. Pointless. Sometimes pretty annoying and even awkward.

I think I've written about my very blah relationship with my friends from secondary school (technically, they're also my friends from primary school). Most times I assumed that they'd also felt the same way about me, since I've hardly seen or heard from them since I changed schools in high school.

But then I just had to go and do that lunch a couple of months ago. Then there was that weird afternoon with my friend who'd moved to New Zealand. And now suddenly I'm personally being tagged in multiple Facebook posts to meet up. I just don't get it. The ones I DID meet up with were the ones I'd always been pretty okay with and wouldn't mind hanging out with from time to time. The ones who are hounding me now are the ones who never seemed to like me all that much and I felt most uncomfortable around.

In addition to the multiple post-tagging, some have even resorted to texting. Here's one I got at 7.30 this morning [7.30 THIS MORNING! First reminder why I'm no longer that close to this person lol].

"Hi! Is this Penelope? We're having a gathering today at ******. U probably were too busy to come on fb so I thought I'd let u know by sms too."

1. If you're not sure if this is my number, I probably don't know who the heck you are either. At least identify yourself!

2. No I'm not too busy, as you can see from the many other posts I've commented on in the past 12 hours (oh maybe not..I think I restricted your access after the last time you posted some lame pseudo-deep thing on my wall). I just couldn't be bothered to participate in that thread of mindless and insincere 'I miss yous' all round.

3. For the 5 years that I wasn't included, nobody bothered to text me...why start interrupting my sleep now?

Don't get me wrong. I don't feel any bitterness or anger or anything negative towards these people. I just never really fit in well with them and didn't mind leaving them behind. Changing schools, though for other reasons, was the best social decision I've ever made. I'd never felt more at home with these people than the friends I made after changing schools. Besides, clearly for a long while none of them felt compelled to keep whatever relationships we had out of a coma anyway. Initially when we'd all just left school for a year or two, I did meet up with them a couple of times. Everyone else was still so close and basically I felt like the only person who didn't know what was going on. It got to a point where it was just a bit pointless to even pretend to still be friends. The annoying 7.30 am girl tried. She was into some lame (and somewhat creepy) guy at my new school. She and I were close enough to be able to go out to dinner just the two of us. But then one night when I'd been prepared for a girls night out, she brought this guy along. She was picking me up, so not only did she bring this guy along, she brought this creep to my house! Later she suggested we hang out and talk some more at my house. Except that when she got there she was afraid of my cute little dog and insisted I tie him up! That was the last straw.

Sorry, girls. You lot just aren't important enough for me to make time for you right now. Maybe sometime when I'm so bored I've got nothing better to do.