Bumping into random people you went to school with years later...C/D?

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You're out, minding your own bidness, and a vaguely familiar face approaches you..."hey, weren't you in my graduating class?" Hilarity ensues (note: not usually).

Bumping into random high/junior high school chums (and not like people you've been friends with, but random people)...Classic or Dud?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

(and thus this thread is adopted unto the New Answers page...)

In regards to the large majority of experiences I've had, I'm gonna say 'dud', cuz it's usually someone I never liked nor got along with to begin with, and now they're older, more full of themselves, etc, and I'm like "why'd it have to be you of all people? Why couldn't it have been Rhonda who I was in love with?" and they're all like "muahaha, I make so much more money than you do and I live in some distant trendy locale, nya".

Although once-in-a-blue-moon it's someone I really did want to see and we're both like "wow, you've aged well, how's it going?". Those times = classic. Except when it's this girl Sarah and I find out she's married now, and I'm like GOD DAMNIT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MARRY ME!, which is dud to the max, natch.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:41 (twenty-three years ago)

This happens to me like once a week since I moved back to NYC. One of the reasons I avoided moving here after graduating from college is the sheer number of Bard people here. Now I don't mind it that much, though.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I sometimes bump into old school pals who insist on impersonating our teachers at me.

It is some seventeen years since I left school.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:46 (twenty-three years ago)

if you have sex with them, and you're both hot chicks, and then you write a letter about it to Penthouse, Classic.

Otherwise, Dud.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:47 (twenty-three years ago)

D for Depressing.

― slutsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I never see anyone from high school. But occasionally, I'll see someone from college, like, on the el or in a bar. And then, assuming they are random people I have no vested interest in, I usually try to avoid them. The ensuing conversation is too awkward: "Yeah, things are great! Job's just okay, but it pays the bills, ha ha ha!"

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:54 (twenty-three years ago)

This happened to me on the PATH train the other month. I was reading a book and rolling my eyes at the various stupid things other passengers where saying. I don't know why I looked up, but I did, and it was a girl I went to college with and she was the former roommate of my best friend's current roommate. Then she introduced me to her husband, which was weird as I did know him from school as well. It was a bit odd.

― rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't done this since about 1978! I guess by my age no one would recognise me, and I wouldn't recognise them. I've seen two people I was at uni with, but that was only a few years ago.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:02 (twenty-three years ago)

This is only happened to me once in the twenty years since I graduated from high school and it was completely awkward and rather bizarre since it was a cashier/customer thing (I was working at Kinko's and the guy from high school was buying stuff)

― Chris Barrus (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Me: Hey, Carlos! [Carlos sat behind me in History class.] How have you been?

Carlos: Oh, great, great.

Me: How's medical school going?

Carlos: [a touch annoyed] I don't know. I didn't go.

Me: [becomes very small and crawls into a crack in the floor]

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the only time this happened to me, it wasn't "years later," it was "the year after I graduated," and I was at Denny's while visiting my mother, so not running into someone I knew would have been like not hurting my neck while blowing myself.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Either mega-classic or awkward dud. Especially funny cuz I'm still in the town I went to high school in, so if you see somebdoy there's this sort of "OK, you've probably graduated college or didn't go...what's your excuse for still being here?"

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I left high school 15 years ago and apart from my immediate circle of friends Ive pretty much seen no one, and it would be DUD if I did because I hated school. Alarmingly, my mother sees more of my old school chums than I do, and often gives me baffling reports ("oh I saw Jenny so and so the other day did you know she's had her third kid?" "err mum I have no idea who you're talking about don't you remember everyone hated me in highschool?")

One odd thing was, when I moved to Melbourne (from my hometown near Canberra) I discovered some years later that my two best mates from school had also moved and we were all living within five minutes walk from each other in the same suburb. Thats really weird. I didn't bother keeping up with them though, they arent people I wanna be around anymore...

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually only ever run into people when I'm back in Maine, which is hardly ever. I get lots of random phone calls, though.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Having to say 'Ah, hi...who are you?' tends to be a bit awkward.

― Ferg (Ferg), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:52 (twenty-three years ago)

i wonder if people that i have boring haha-things-are-great-yep-i'm-nearly-graduated-ok-bye type conversations with can sense the loathing and condecension lurking beneath the surface of my pleasantries.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm usually either invited to parties I have no intention of going to, or am told to give the person a call when they don't really want me to.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Except when it's this girl Sarah and I find out she's married now, and I'm like GOD DAMNIT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MARRY ME!, which is dud to the max, natch

I did have this happen once, too. (Except Sarah was Bryn). Ooooh that sucked.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 20:19 (twenty-three years ago)

While my mom was still living in that town, I got updates every once in a while. This was the weirdest:

mom: Did you go to school with a Marissa so-and-so?
me: um, rings a bell. I think she transferred in my last year.
mom: well she was killed in a freak accident, left behind four kids. (note: we were 25 or 26 at this point)
me: wow, what happened?
mom: she was leading a tour of an old mine museum and one of the little ore carts came loose. It went along the tracks and she was in the way. Smashed her right up against the wall.
me: Holy shit.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 20:57 (twenty-three years ago)

fucking dud. i bump into some girl who was really mean to me at high school (actually most of my peers were). the first time i bumped into her, she acted like we were old friends and i was really standoffish with her. the second time, she was all like "oh yeah, the last time i saw you you were really stand-offish with me, and i was like, whats with the attitude". oh gee i fucking WONDER. the last time i saw her, she came into my work, and we "caught up" with each other. when i told her i was doing my dissertation she got this really high and mighty tone in her voice to tell me about her PhD in anatomy. FFS.

― di smith (lucylurex), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 22:32 (twenty-three years ago)

This very rarely happens to me in-person, though most of the people from my high school (the second one, at least) were pretty cool, so it wouldn't be too dud.

I did recently run into an old high school friend online. Turns out we were members of the same, pretty small online community, and had been participating for over a year without knowing who each other really was. It took a random discussion thread about what our "real names" each were for me to discover this.

― Jen (nstop), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 23:01 (twenty-three years ago)

i would ignore them or pretend i was someone else

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 15 May 2003 00:59 (twenty-three years ago)

This never happens to me! Which is odd, since it's not like I live that far afield from where I went to school. It's probably a good thing, since most people I went to high school with I'd like to kick in the eye.

― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 15 May 2003 01:32 (twenty-three years ago)

And that way you don't have to waste valuable time on them.

High school = hasn't happened. Undergrad days = hasn't happened. Grad days = well, I work at the same campus I was a grad student at, so it's not really random...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 15 May 2003 01:34 (twenty-three years ago)

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