The sinister side of Friends Reunited

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I received this in an email today:

"u cunt. just read your profile and you are still a dick. why dont you get a life you prick or at least make out that you have one. are you still a grungy soap dodging tramp? cock"

What's weird is that I haven't said a word (I mean it) to the fellow in question for *10 YEARS*! So I sent him a suitably snarky reply and can't wait to see what he says.
BUT ANYWAY
Do YOU have any unpleasant school reunion/'Friends' Reunited (etc)experiences? Have you bumped into people you hoped were dead? Alternatively, use this thread to bitch about yr school enemies. I'm sure someone still has grudges...

― DG, Monday, 25 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

New internet abuse answers!

― DG, Monday, 25 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Probably no-one would remember me from school anyway, so I am safe!

― Ally C, Monday, 25 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I run into people from school and uni periodically but because I look so different there's rarely any recognition. I have no desire to talk to any of them, and I'd imagine it would be pretty mutual in that regard. Those that weren't small-town dipshits were awful and pretentious.

My first girlfriend (who I haven't seen in 9 years) is apparently back in town at the moment, to play some shows. Found out by accident. I'm currently deciding whether or not it would be at all worthwhile catching up with them...

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 25 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I posted an alleged "bio" in thee most impenetrable h4x0r-speak I could muster. Now, my wife, Jill takes our little one tohis toddler swimming lessons 2x a week, and one of the other mumz there is someone I used to go to sk3wl w/. Abt 1 week after I posted my message, jill saw her there, and she was acting weird, like there was something on her mind. "what's the matter" said jill. "Well.....it's yourhusband's message on friends reunited. Is he OK?" She thought I'd gone mad. y0y0y0y0 sh3 ph3lt th4 ph34r LOLOLLOLOLOLLO!!!!!@#@#@!~#. Next up, I plan to cut & paste "um-er-and-er-aargh-er-and-er" repeatedly s.th. like 1000 times. I look at the littlebio box, and I just see a canvas for my ev0l. Dear oh dear....

― Norman Phay, Tuesday, 26 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

DG - what had you said in your profile?

― N., Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

DG, if they can't do the spelling/punctuation/grammar thing while insulting you then just ignore them (I used to correct snipey little notes written by my dad's wife to me and my sis in red pen and send 'em back if there were mistakes). Plebs.

I only had a few enemies at school but they were quite dedicated. Nasty girls who would, if here, be the equivalent of the Romford Puffas'n'Ponytails Drill Team. They'd call me out and I'd just say 'tch, what are you doing here? I thought you were PREGNANT.'

I don't think I'll ever run into any of them unless I stumble into the wrong convenience store or insurance office somewhere in suburban Minneapolis.

― suzy, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The thing with Friends Reunited is that you can only have one profile that is shown across all the schools you select to monitor, so mine was primarily written for ICHS and not Chadwell High, which is where the sender of that charming message attended. I just said I was arsing around having fun with my friends, basically, but the names I wrote wouldn't mean anything to the abusive dude. Typically, looking at my old school there's only really one person I'm interested in (mentioned on the 'older kids' ILM thread) but I have to pay to send emails, which I'm considering as I'd like to know how the fellow in question turned out.

― DG, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three weeks pass...

i have just been to friendsreunited, it is incredibly depressing, full of people like 'Richard Banks (Banksy)' aaargh!,,,.. ""i would love to hear from any of you who remember those great days". wtf? they make it sound like aeons ago, they're only in their 20s for fucks sake!!

i didn't register with my real name (what do you take me for, i hated school, i don't want to see those losers again thats for sure), but i had to look, i had to know, and now i wish i didn't have the damn information, i feel icky, debased, i should be above that shit.

― gareth, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've just logged on and I'm reeling in shock from what I've found there - like Gareth, I'm partly wishing I hadn't, yet I feel slightly triumphant I've moved on. I suspect I will go back later and look again.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i didn't discover anything amazing from my Friendsreunited searching, except that someone from my year (and who my sister once went out with) is now singing on ocean cruise liners. what was more worrying is the number of people who hadn't moved from Chelmsford, since Chelmsford is very dull, and also because the school was a grammar school and i remember from population studies that university students/graduates as being among the most likely to move around the country.

you're both right - there is a sort of triumphant feeling. the mental image of all the once-cool people at school still living at home and going to the pubs round the corner is a strange one and slightly sad one.

― michael, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My friends reunited experience was nothing like that.

― N., Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My sources tell me that the fellow who sent the email that inspired this thread was in a car crash last year and Has Never Been The Same Since.

― DG, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm amazed at how many have children. I just have debt and hangovers. . .

i don't care about hs friends. that's ancient history.

― Samantha, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've just discovered that a tosser (primary school county chess champion, suddnely forgotten about to hang about with girls. Unblinking superiority complex), and minor arch-enemy of mine, has since I left gained the nickname "Coldplay". Karma and all that.

― Graham, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i cant keep from looking, i feel unclean, but i had to look at other schools in the area as well, i just couldnt help myself, and i found this:

1999 - Year 11 of 1999: A retrospective.

The year was 1999 and GCSEs faced us, beyond that a glorious summer and, who at that time knew? I didn't. I thought the other day how much times have changed, how much we all have changed in these few short years. Yes, the old friendships are there, but what of the innocence, the youth of us all? The sad fact is, we lost it. Slowly, over a period of years it has slipped out of our grasp. The world has changed. We all have different paths now that we must walk, for the most part, alone. Our bridges are made and we must cross them. The memories of my time at Beckfoot are precious, as they should be, and on that cold December 18 2001 I wish I could have gone straight back to those days.
But I can't. I think I will become a drifter soon, uni life is not for me. Perhaps I'll sail, do a bit of writing, who knows? But I do know one thing. Those rose-tinted memories of Beckfoot will be with me forever.

Happy Days

wow, nostalgia kicks in early these days...

― gareth, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

tho i am so easy to Google, i feel queazy about registering proper at my school on friendsreunited cos i was such the school swot/spod/narg/git. i get more of a kick out of seeing how the kids i taught (though it was brief) are getting on.

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gareth, you're weird. I didn't have a brilliant time at school but I got nostalgic about it within about three months of leaving (prob. cause university was so bad). I don't think it's odd to get nostalgic about things that happened TEN YEARS ago for heaven's sake. It's a foreign country, man.

― N., Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, in that case three years. I'm seriously nostalgic about 1999 myself.

― N., Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha......."perhaps I'll become a drifter soon", you'd swear he's about to talk about how some birds sing such a beautiful song they must be set free, FREE TO EXIST!........TO LIVE!

― Ronan, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

primary teacher
OWN ONE VENTRILOQUISTS DUMMY

i cant stop

― gareth, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I get nostalgic about school because I was good at dealing with bullies, had authority figures dancing to MY tune and had top marks in the school despite an Incorrigible Attitude.

― suzy, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my how you've changed

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my favourite:

After leaving University spent 3 years travelling around South America which consisted of 8 months in a Bolivian jail and 4 months in the party capital of the word Rio! Eventually got back and started up a software company with a pal of mine from our Uni days. Now spend at least six months of the year in my villa on the Algarve playing golf and living it up.

once a bullshitter always a bullshitter

― chris, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought i'd probably never check it out, but I just looked and had my Faith in Humanity confirmed (even viz people I hated and that big bully Sharon J), what with the people being kind of nice, and apparently grudge-free, and not so big with the boasting or nostalgia wallowing (I know this is just careful presentation of self stuff, but still); they mostly seem interested in people rather than memories, in connecting and reconnecting. I was particularly touched to see my First Crush, a cello player, describe himself simply as a "transexual alcoholic". And there were some funny made-up mad ones and plentiful charming self-deprecation also. Sociologically, surprised to see so few marriages and kids; generational, or does it correlate w/ the kind of people who'd post on Friends R?

― Ellie, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

class differential, the estate kid, the rougher kids, noticeable by absence. the rest? old before time, children, separated, sales managers. i don't quite know what it is but there is something incredibly awful about it all. a permanent continuous online reunion.

― gareth, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lying to people from your school is really fun though, at my debs I hadn't seen anyone in about 8 months and I was spouting lies to everyone, I must have been doing Medicine, Law, Bakery Management, Modern Drama, every bloody course there was. towards the end of the night I could see the web of lies falling asunder as people talked to each other.

― Ronan, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

just found my first ever crush, aged 6. she's been married six years and has two kids. and to make it worse is a sodding teacher!

― chris, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe she's a sex tourist on the side, though.

― Nicole, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

obviously I'd prefer it if she was a Thai bar girl

― chris, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

wow, nostalgia kicks in early these days..

gareth in dissing nostalgia shocker

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 28 March 2003 07:02 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

does anyone still bother with Friends Re-united? i haven't gone back there much at all this year

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

i use it as a very concise blog. the only person to have written to me is my college, telling me to have a graduation ceremony.

come on guys! you must remember me. orange puffa. crap hair.

― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't bother with it. I got an email from someone who used to go to my school whom i didn't actually know via FR to say that the headmaster had written a book and asking if I wanted to buy it, but that was all.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 28 November 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

My weird FR moment.

I've been on FR for about two years, have never made contact; have never been contacted.

Till Friday.

I share my name with a famous US novelist from the Thirties. The message I got read: 'hi *****. how's anais?'. Do you see? Anyhoo, I don't think I'd heard of the sender (female), but google tells me she's my age, went to my university, and worked at the 'rival' student newspaper here (along with another ILX0r, forget who).

So it's possible we met and I've entirely forgotten.

But my question is technical: do you have to pay to email someone? If so, is that wacky, to pay money to tell a joke? I'm actually quite charmed, but you know -- the interweb.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still waiting for my copy of the headmaster's book throught the post :(

The only person I am in (semi) regular contact with from when I did bother with FR went to the same school *and* uni as me (the only person from my year who did) and now works across the road from my office for the same company as ilxor Johnney B!

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

The only person's who's ever made contact with me was a guy who hit my head off our primary school railings and is now a presenter on sky sports.

― leigh (leigh), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:17 (twenty-two years ago)

who was this Leigh, we have to know!

― chris (chris), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Richard "gorilla arms" Keys??? Mark Dempsey? That weirdo with the curly hair who does the camp to Chris Kamara's butch husband. He presents the phone in, I forget his name.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

yes I believe you pay a fiver to enable the email function. can't remember if it's a one-off payment or like a subscription thing, but it's a fiver anyway. i subscribed ages ago but only used the function once cos i forgot one of my friends' emails. bloody useless.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

McCaff? surely not?

― chris (chris), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't imagine him as a bully really, he always looks sad or just confused.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

His name is Neil, he used to do commentary on Scotsport and Sportscene - he's got one of these voices that sounds prematurely middle aged - sort of old school scots in the style of archie macpherson.

― leigh (leigh), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

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