People Share The Wildest Stories From Their High School Reunions

"At my 20-year reunion, two guys got arrested for fist fighting on the sidewalk outside the bar. Why were they fighting? One of the guys slept with the other guy's girlfriend in high school and drunkenly brought up the 20-year-old fling. Neither of them married or even dated her after high school, but 20 years later, those idiots got charged over her."

Oh, my goodness, ha, ha!

"At my 10-year reunion, the organizers were doing the thing where they give 'awards' for the person who came the farthest to attend, the person with the most kids, etc. The award came up for who had the oldest kid, and people started shouting out their kids' ages. When it quieted down, this shy girl near the front said in a normal voice, '11' and then we all realized why we had stopped seeing Heather right before graduation."

Oops! The secret is out.

"It's been a decade since I finished school, but I run into an old classmate sometimes when he does maintenance work in my apartment block. About a year ago, he asked if I was going to the reunion. I said no because I couldn't think of anything worse and also hadn't been invited. (Apparently, they organized it over Facebook, which I don't have.) When I next saw him, I asked how the reunion went. He exasperatedly explained that it had been a real [expletive] show. The mean girls had started planning it together but had a falling out, and then each began planning their own reunion. So there were about four, tiny, awkward parties, and everyone was confused."

Leave it to the mean girls to screw things up. Am I right?

"Not mine, but my mother went back to her 40-year reunion last summer. In December she left my father (36 years of marriage) for her high school sweetheart and is now living with him."

Wow! I bet the dad didn't see that coming. Am I right?

"Small college reunion with my core group of friends from university. This was about five years after graduation. We all partied pretty hard in school but mellowed out in our late twenties. Decided to all meet up for dinner at a local bar/restaurant. Think Applebees, but nicer. One guy showed up already wasted... He decided we were boring, finished his bottle in the restroom, and refused to come out. He ended up passing out there. The bartender kicked him out. He came alone in an Uber, and we had no idea where he lived. None of us wanted to take him to our places (he was angry, puking, and belligerent), so we dropped him off at his last known address. His parents' house. Both of them answered the door, and we handed him over. It was past midnight and incredibly awkward. He's not invited to the next reunion."

That must've been pretty embarrassing for the parents, huh?

"I honestly don't know why I went to my high school reunion. The friends that I kept in touch with, well, I kept in touch with. Regardless, one friend managed to convince me otherwise, so I went. The reunion wasn't bad, but it was mostly people trying their best to one-up each other in their bid to look successful. I sat at a table next to my friend and actually enjoyed catching up with long-forgotten acquaintances. However, I barely recognized one girl. My friend and I kept asking each other if she was in our graduating class or someone's spouse. Turns out, she was in our class and had spent close to $80,000 for cosmetic surgery. She was so proud that nobody could recognize her. She could've been a candidate on Botched, but who was I to pop her bubble?"

Yikes!

"Five-year reunion: one guy (always kind of a marginal figure in HS, but a nice person), after some sort of discussion got his paycheck out and got loud saying, 'Now do you think I’m a loser?' 'Don’t believe how much I make? Check this out' Of course, he just made things worse, and everyone was laughing at him. I mean — he had his paycheck on him? Haven’t seen him since, BTW."

Somebody should explain subtlety to this guy, ha, ha.

"Someone confessed to me that I was his 'dream girl' at our reunion. Meanwhile, his date was his fiancée. I barely knew him in high school. Unfortunately for his fiancée, she didn’t know anyone there, and he refused to leave with her. He drunkenly told me, 'I’m not leaving with her; I'm leaving with you.' I told his fiancée to text me when their car was outside. I then whispered, 'Let's go,' to him, walked him out, and put him in her car. I'll never forget the look on his face when he realized who was driving. I said, 'Yeah, that's how tonight is going to end.' They still got married so..."

Can you believe that?

"When I was in seventh grade, this bully, John, grabbed a wool scarf that my mother had knitted for me off of my head. He then threw the scarf into a pile of muddy leaves and jumped on it. When I went home that day, my mother was furious. The scarf was torn and muddy. She made me tell her who did it and then called the school principal to yell at him. The next day, John got pulled into the principal's office and paddled (back when they still paddled kids). At our 50-year reunion, John came up to me and angrily said, 'You got me into trouble in seventh grade!' I got him in trouble?! Worst, 55 years later, he's still mad about it. I said, 'John, you were a dick in high school, and you're still a dick,' and I walked away."

Can you imagine somebody holding a grudge for that long for something that happened in seventh grade? Unbelievable, eh?

"This guy who was so snooty back in high school had arrived late for the dinner portion of our reunion. All of the seats at his old friends' table were already taken, so he sullenly sat down with the likes of us. I took pity on him because most people at the table ignored him and started asking him questions, like how he's fared since graduation. The DJ was blasting music, so everyone was yelling over the table to be heard. I asked him what he was doing now, and he said that he worked at a law firm. I said, 'That's impressive. Are you a lawyer or studying to be a lawyer?' He said that he was 'working on it,' so I asked what he did now at the firm. I kid you not — it was a movie moment. The DJ cut the music so the MC could make an announcement just as this guy — who'd been getting frustrated with my questions — shouted back, 'I'm a mailroom clerk!' Everyone stared. I hate to say this, but accidental justice was served. He was taken down a peg or two by his own hands."

You know what they say about karma, right?

"Didn’t happen to me, but I had this friend who got someone pregnant back in the day and she kept the kid, they’ve both been great about it, he helps financially but that was the extent of his contribution. She married soon out of high school and met a great guy who has been the de facto dad. Either way, it’s a day to bring your kids if you have them to the event and someone let slip that my friend is that kid's 'real' dad. And the kid heard it... Everyone was trying to figure out who said that, how could someone spill that secret, etc. In the end, my friend pretended he was shocked and laughed it off as a joke, which honestly in front of the kid was probably a good move."

That must've been quite awkward.

"We had a teacher in high school that told us 'by the time you reach your 10-year reunion, at least one of your classmates will have died' during a discussion about mortality. Ten-year reunion arrives and nobody from our class has died. Saturday night of the reunion we're partying and having a good old time. One of the organizers gets up to the microphone and is making some announcements, she gets a blank look on her face and drops to the floor.

Brain aneurysm, she was dead before she hit the floor."

Wow, I'm speechless here.

"It wasn't really bad, just odd. A guy came with full Kiss-style makeup on — white face, black shapes around his eyes, and black lips. We were too awkward and polite to mention it, so everyone just chatted with him as though it was completely normal to turn up like that."

I can't stop laughing at that.

"My 10-year reunion killed itself before it happened. Turns out our class president — who is traditionally in charge of organizing — took a hard turn into a Footloose character after high school. No alcohol was allowed, not even BYOB. A few classmates in a reasonably successful band offered to play for free, but she was adamant that there'd be no music or dancing. Plus-ones were for spouses only. Two guys happily told her they'd bring their husbands, and she kicked them out from the Facebook page. The food would be catered from a grocery store whose food is actually OK, but tickets were $60. It was ultimately canceled because, out of our class of 300, less than 10 people bought tickets."

That's no fun and serves her right, huh?

"One guy had made not one but two fortunes and had a net worth of well over $100-million by our 20th reunion. He developed high-speed modem patents in the late 1980s and was an early investor in broadband, so he'd already retired. On our classmate's update bulletin, he listed his occupation as 'unemployed and unemployable' as a bit of a gag. Some of the well-meaning but clueless classmates sought him out to offer encouragement and tips on how to find work."

Um, that must've been funny for the guy to pretend like he really needs the work, right?

"At my 10-year high school reunion, we had a decent turnout, maybe 100+ people. We were at a pretty nice hotel banquet hall. There was one guy I had known all through high school, and he was a well-known stoner. I'll call him Chris for this story. I see Chris walk into the banquet hall, stop in his tracks, and turn around in a very slow 360-degree circle, surveying the entire room. He just says, 'Whoa...', and he looks visibly alarmed. He stops and his eyes settle on me. I say, 'Hey, Chris! Long time no see, man!'. He kind of slides over to me and whispers in my ear, 'This is really weird... I'm pretty sure I know every single person in this room.' And that is when I realize he is wearing the same clothes as all the banquet hall workers.

I walk him out to the front lobby and explain it's our 10-year high school reunion. He is mortified, and beyond embarrassed. He was never contacted and didn't even realize it had been 10 years since we graduated. He just knew he was working another catering gig in a neverending series of catering gigs. I make him take me to his manager. I explain what is happening and tell the manager there is NO WAY this guy is working his own high school reunion. Awesomely, the manager agrees. We find a different suit jacket and tie for him, and I take Chris back to the party. He ended up having a good night."

Aww, that's nice.

"My sister, my-now husband, and I were all in the same graduating class. Plus, my husband's best friend, whose name is something like 'John Smith' — very common. He was very popular in high school and a super-nice guy who stood out in a crowd. If you didn't know him, you certainly knew of him. Anyway, the 20-year reunion rolled around, and only my sister went. She called right after and was very upset. Apparently, there was a huge memorial wall for John Smith, who'd just died. None of us knew! It was awful, but then my husband was like, 'Wait, we just saw him?' He called John up and was like, 'Hey, dude, are you dead?' No. Not dead. Surprised, but not dead. It turned out the other, less popular John Smith had died. They made a lovely memorial for the wrong guy.

We still run into people, to this day, who see him and are like, 'Hey...aren't you supposed to be dead?'"

Omg, how does someone even make a mistake like that?

"My high school was well funded, so every class has a trust fund for reunions. We originally looked at ballrooms for 1,000 people since we had a class of 850 students and expected plus-ones. But as interest waned, we scaled back. The school's alumni association dispenses the funds based on class size and allotment for the milestone. The reunion ended up being held at a local bar with good food, and 25 alumni showed up — 40 people total including their partners. However, because 150 people had RSVP'd, and the school allotted $50 per person and another $50 per plus-one, the trust gave us $15,000 for the bill. Well, the 40 of us drank and ate our asses off, so the bill came out to $7,500 between food and the rental fee. After the organizer paid the bill, she handed everyone $100 from the envelope. Then, she handed the rest of the envelope to the manager as a tip — so roughly $3,000 for the waitstaff and crew."

I'd like to go to that reunion, ha, ha.

Were there any secrets revealed or drama that happened? Now, after reading all these crazy stories, I kind of wish I went mine after all. It would have been interesting to see what everyone is up to and how their lives turned out. Oh, well, perhaps there will be another one at some point, ha, ha.