At what age do you stop hooking up with schoolfriends at Christmas?

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assuming you go 'home' to where you grew up and shit.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

― C J (C J), Monday, 14 November 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

Most of my friends who've moved here from somewhere else still do this, and most of them are in their mid-twenties.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:01 (twenty years ago)

You do it once, out of courtesy, then you never speak to them again.

― James Ward (jamesmichaelward), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

it feels even weirder now we all live in london, and don't see each other here in the intervening 12 months. maybe last time was the last time.

or maybe not.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

it's super-complex for me cos i never see my actual present-tense 'friends' either.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

There are about 5 friends, at least, who I still meet up with on Christmas Eve every year. I do try to see them at other times of year too, though, if I'm going to be in their areas, so it's not quite as strange.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

i say 'london', but i mean things like 'putney' really.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Never happened. When I've occasionally thought about banging the high school girls I wanted to bang when I was in high school, the idea is depressing to the point of being disgusting. I don't want to bang them now.

― I AM OTM, Monday, 14 November 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

crazy

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:09 (twenty years ago)

I never did in high school and never did after graduation.

― Nathalie is in Da Base II Dark (stevie nixed), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:10 (twenty years ago)

i didn't go to 'high school' or 'graduate'. i kind of managed to keep up with a fair number of people thru university and over the last couple of years (i graduated 2001), but last time felt sort of final, don't know why but it did.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:13 (twenty years ago)

The last xmas we did this was when we were 24, but I think we held on for a bit too long cos we were, in fairness, all bored.

However, when I have seen the girls from school that I wanted to bang, they're still bangable now, so the bang factor didn't lead to the boredom.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:13 (twenty years ago)

Theorry- maybe it felt kind of final because it is gross, maybe?

― I AM OTM, Monday, 14 November 2005 12:14 (twenty years ago)

hang on 'hooking up' != banging, in MY thread thx.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:16 (twenty years ago)

you sick fucks.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

...I don't think I ever did...

― Lady Totteringby-Gently (kate), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

Never did this. Kind of envy those who do. Tends to be people from small towns who can all just turn up at the pub on Xmas eve and know there'll be people there.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

yeah that's exactly it.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

Yup!

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

although never xmas eve itself, which is always ghostly in cambridge.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

(although, thinking about it, last year was the first time I can remember that, as usual, we all went on to the same dodgy little indie club that we used to go to, and didn't bump into a big crowd of people we recognised there too)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:21 (twenty years ago)

Really? Here, Christmas Eve seems to be a big night for people going out and meeting up with old friends. Certainly, everywhere is always packed.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:22 (twenty years ago)

I suppose this would also depend on having a "hometown" to go back to. What a strange concept.

― Lady Totteringby-Gently (kate), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

is it really so strage, kate?

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

To me, it is.

― Lady Totteringby-Gently (kate), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:26 (twenty years ago)

considering I still live where I grew up I do sort of meet these people sometimes anyway. I think though it's more likely that you end up talking to them if you're in the local pub at Christmas, cos it's so full you're all in each others faces anyhow!

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:28 (twenty years ago)

I left my bag in Newport Pagnell.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:28 (twenty years ago)

I'll be stuck forever in the hometown I grew up in. It's suffocating and comforting at the same time. (Maybe I like the asphyxation bit. har har) But I never felt the need to see my schoolfriends again.

― Nathalie is in Da Base II Dark (stevie nixed), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:28 (twenty years ago)

Blimey, I was still doing this at 30. There was a bit of a hiatus until I was about 24, when I found myself in the same dole queue as an old classmate (with his 1st in Eng Lit and my 2:2 in Physics, we were similarly unemployable); within a few weeks I'd hooked up with five or six of the old crowd and, when I finally did move away, I always seemed to end up back in Stan1ey's C4sk on R4ke L4ne every NYE with that lot.

They were still funny, we had a lot in common that wasn't simply nostalgia, but once I was married and living in that there London...the links dissolved.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

thinking about it, i see literally no-one from school, but i do see people from sixth form college, so it's less ancient-history-y. but it is a long time ago, now.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:33 (twenty years ago)

The Spy was doing this over last Xmas, and he's in his early 30s. I just found it bizarre. I suppose if you've lived in the same neighbourhood for most of your youth, and went to the same schools and kept the same crowd, you might want to keep in touch at the holidays.

I haven't seen most of these people in nigh on 20 years, went to so many schools that I never really got attached enough to any of them to care that much. When my mum still lived in Albany, I made the effort to see friends when I went back at the holidays, but they weren't people I knew through school, but more through the music scene.

This thread makes me wonder if I'm missed something.

― Lady Totteringby-Gently (kate), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:34 (twenty years ago)

i have to say i do 'revert' a bit at home, but that's not entirely a bad thing, given what an embittered, abrasive, uptight young man i've become.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

as for actual school friends rather than people I was friends with when I went to school, they're different groups cos I went to school in Dublin city centre.

I never see any of my school friends anymore, except one who goes to clubs and stuff and whom I see alot of generally (though recently a bit less of too, since I finished college)

I am meant to go for a drink with some school friends soon actually, I guess I will, though usually forcing these things isn't worth it anyhow.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 14 November 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

I've met up with schoolfriends at Xmas almost every year since leaving, I'm 29. I only keep in touch with 1 friend from school but he's in touch with a few more that still live in Worcester so we meet up with them as well.

Shit, reminds me I haven't called him since April or something!

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

80% of my core, thrust-with-each-other's-lives friends(there are 5 of them in total) are all people i went to school with. one of them i've known for 24 years. what reasonable person ever thinks what age they should stop being friends with people? you either are or you aren't.

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

TRUST-with each-other's-lives!

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

we know what you meant, dave.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

and it's kind of hot

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

what reasonable person ever thinks what age they should stop being friends with people? you either are or you aren't.

i'm not thinking that (not that i'm very reasonable). i don't think 'these are not my friends', cos in a way they aren't -- we only see each other at xmas. sometimes we say 'we should do this more often', but never follow through. i wouldn't cut someone of for the hell of it, and like stelfox, many of my g/f's bezzies are friends from childhood.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

yeah, it depends if you're meeting "people you know from school" or friends you happen to have made there. there's a big distinction.

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

slightly tangential, i got sent an invite to a school reunion the other day. now, that is a truly horrific idea to me.

― sfxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

only it's not that big a distinction... i'm a sociopath though, that's why i'm on the internet.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:21 (twenty years ago)

i say 'london', but i mean things like 'putney' really.

Do I sense a teensy bit of scorn in your voice there?

My best mate was a schoolfriend, and the circle we see at Christmas I also see the rest of the year - though our Xmas fun is sort of more formalised and "traditional", i.e. we've been doing the same things for a decade. But then we all live within a few miles of our teenage ground zero (= Wimbledon) so I guess it's not really the same situation as most of the rest of you.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:24 (twenty years ago)

henry, surely you there are people you went to school with who you'd say hi to, maybe go for a pint with once in a blue moon but really you know that the only bond is a fairly lengthy shared past and that you'd never be friends with them if you met in another situation, as opposed to real friends? surely you can see that distinction?

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

if you can make any sense of that sentence, that is

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

unfortch i only see my real friends once in a blue moon! maybe i have no friends, ultimately.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

xmas is one of the few times of the year when i don't see schoolfriends! haha seeing that my flatmate is one. and that my family are no longer living where i was in school. and that our family don't really do anything for xmas! lol

although it's nice to see schoolfriends and i'd happily see them whenever.

i don't habitually meet school acquaintances for the sake of it.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

My core circle of friends includes five or six people who went to school together, myself included, with a load more from 6th form who drift in and out, so we see each other all the time anyway. I feel pretty lucky about this, but maybe its because myself and one other guy have been through various phases of our lives together. Therefore we've been pretty successful at assimilating people from elsewhere (work, university, random parties and club nights etc) without making them feel like they're on the outside of an impenetrable lifelong clique.

We do all go to the same pub every Christmas Eve though. But it's a great pub.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

when i say the reunion is a horrific idea, i am actually quite tempted in a really ghoulish way.

― sfxxx, Monday, 14 November 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

I stopped doing this about 2 years ago. it was kinda sad, but it became a drag to organise what with expanded/broken families to see and partners to consider. Plus: hangover.

I still see my friends from home en masse a couple of times a year (and individuallly quite often), but miss the xmas get-together experience.

― Pete W (peterw), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

I've never done it. My friends at school didn't go to pubs and still don't, and it wasn't something I started doing until I got to university. Woking's a fucking nightmare on Christmas Eve anyway - wouldn't go near it if you paid me. I much prefer a mug of hot chocolate and Carols From King's.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 14 November 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

in cambridge, the carols sing you

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Its a lot different from school reunions as well - everybody you hated at school and hated you, for whatever reason, will be there, with plenty of opportunity for old scabs to be hacked off. You only meet up at Xmas with people you like, in theory.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

we do this the night before thanksgiving which always results in a massive hangover and me not eating turkis.

― bingo (Chris V), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Generally it's only people I at least vaguely liked that I meet at Xmas nowadays. The first few years after school there were still people I hated hanging around there but now they seem to have all moved on. I haven't been to any school reunions, we just had our 10 year reunion last year so I guess there won't be any more for a while. I go to university hall of residence reunions sometimes, but that's about it.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

my sixth form college had 1500 people in it (including the young dog latin) so i don't think a reunion would really work.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

although the past few years we have been having parties at our respective homes rather than go to the local bar. but im still friends with most of my high school buddies so it doesn't matter when i see them

― bingo (Chris V), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Is this a British thing?

― Roxymuzak, Mrs. Carbohydrate (roxymuzak), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

NOPE.

― bingo (Chris V), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

I went to a posh toff's school, so there were only 135 people in my year, but I doubt a very large percentage of those attend any reunions anyway.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

I still do this. I'm closer with my high school friends than my college friends to this day.

― Laura H. (laurah), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

i went to posh shcool before 6th form -- i have cut them out completely.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty far away from family & home and don't get there much, so when I go to visit I really just hang around the homestead, maybe get a quiet drink with my siblings. I guess if I were there longer than a week I'd need to get out more but as it is things are never dull -- there're a bunch of us in the family and friends & neighbors are always dropping in.

Problem is that the people I would be mostly likely to want to see are the ones who moved away & did neat-O stuff and may or may not be home for the hols. The only people who're GUARANTEED to be in town are the ones who never left.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 14 November 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

ah, People Who Never Left. i don't think any of my friends did this.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 14 November 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

i wish i'd get invited for reunion (except my school doesn't have my address anymore so i probably HAD been invited but just didn't know)

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 14 November 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

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