If attending a high school reunion was good for anything, it was for reaffirming that:

1. High school is a clique-ish environment. People are put in boxes and labeled. If you’re out of a box, you’re lost.
2. Aside from my friends since 12, I had no real friends from high school.
3. I am judgmental when it comes to people from high school. Or, more bluntly, I don’t like them. And perhaps they don’t like me too.

To say that I didn’t enjoy the reunion would be an understatement. I appreciate how my friends took care of me, but I hated the thought that I needed taking care of.

Being in one section all throughout high school, and having bottle-thick eyeglasses to boot, I am put in the box labeled ‘Geek’. This is exactly the stereotype I wanted to break out of, when I stepped into college. I went at great lengths to gain a social life. I became outspoken, friendly, confident. I joined organizations. I even attempted at a leadership position. I had friends, and later on, a boyfriend. I was successful.

But stepping into the high school reunion was like stepping back through time.

I was a wallflower. A ‘geek’ again. An outsider.

I hated it.