So, Like, High School. Omygawd. March 29, 2006
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Uncategorized.trackback
Call me behind on the times, but I am just discovering MySpace. I’m not on FaceBook. I am on Friendster, but only because everybody else was doing it and I needed something to fill my time years ago while I was looking for meaningful employment. (Something I have very much of now.)
I obviously knew what MySpace was before I started playing around on it a bit. I don’t live under a rock. I’d just rather my supreme dorkiness on a blog than on “social networking” Web sites. Not for me. I’m at the age that kind of missed MySpace. People I know were on Friendster, but then we grew up before MySpace really took off. And the thought of making a MySpace profile at age 26 doesn’t suit me. At all. Funky backgrounds and embedded song clips abound. I’d have to get my sister to explain how it all works to me. No thanks. (And it all feels very high school cafeteriaish. Like I should only hope that the cool kids would add me as their friend. Ew.)
But I decided to cruise the MySpace a tad recently and I discovered the feature that lets you search by your high school and graduation year. And this puts Googling someone to shame. Sure, you can’t get all of the dirt Google gives you. But, you can make some pretty good assumptions based on amount of time dedicated to a profile, number of pictures uploaded, song choice and number of friends.
It was revealing. Lots of ladies from my school with babies on their hips. More than I thought I’d see. A lot of shots in bars, formal wedding pictures, pictures with men strategically cropped out. It’s funny to see who knows each other and who still hangs out and who got really bad blonde highlights and fake bakes too much. This one guy I (for some reason) had crushed on sophomore year now is a “single dad.” Interesting.
When I look at pictures of my classmates, some girls with whom I went to school from kindergarten through high school, it is odd to see them as adults. They look how 25 and 26-year-old women look. No more braces and bad skin and training bras. No more big bows in our hair and hot pinks backpacks and cliché formal dresses. Fewer faces round with baby fat. Ladies, we’ve grown up.
I closed down the site, amused with my trip down memory lane and settled in for my in-bed night routine. Vaseline Intensive Care lotion on the elbows, knees and feet. Burt’s Bees Cuticle Cream on the nails. Whole Foods Hand Salve on the, um, hands. I ran my fingers through my still-damp hair, chapsticked my lips, took my sinus medicine and was dropping everything into my purse when I stopped. I pulled out my compact and looked.
All of those pictures of my classmates got me thinking. Do I look older than I did then? I took one last look and scrunched my nose before I snapped the compact shut. I don’t think so, but I do see myself each day.
I suppose that matters.
I think as we grow up, we do change, but still essentially remain the same. I look at my pix from when i was in high school and I look the same except I have better pores and hair now…but I think I look so damn young!
Love the new look. Very grown up. I’m missing the shoes though:(
nice new banner. i’m trying to figure out if it’s a drink haha!
i think that usually people kinda look the same… maybe just a more matured version of a younger self. at least that was how i felt when i went for my school’s 10 year reunion recently and met people i literally hadn’t seen in 10 years.
Also loving your new banner. Nice and fresh.
I have a big reunion at my high school this summer, but I probably won’t go. I went to a veeerrry small school, so the people that I was close friends with then, I still contact briefly now, and the people I wasn’t friends with I don’t. And I’m ok with that. I still am amazed at how many people are still “there.” Didn’t move out of town, didn’t change habits or opinions or anything. Sure they may have three kids or own a house, but they are the same person. I don’t think that I am. And I’m happy being who I am now as opposed to who I was then. And many of them can’t accept that. It’s weird.
I’m so afraid that people I went to high school with will see my picture and think “wow - look - she’s gained 10 pounds since high school.” Ouch!
No reunions for me until we fix that! 
Hahaha… you’re such a 26 year old girl!
MySpace is crack. Unhealthy. It’s just not normal to destroy all the memories and visions that you have of what friends used to look like.
…and then you can only give the story of what you’ve been up to the last 7 years so many times.
We’re literally obsessed with Facebook. Although some might think this is a bad thing, overall it’s very useful for finding out info/stalking people you know and don’t really know. MySpace is fun too, and it’s fun to pretend you’re friends with Madonna and Beyonce, but you need to know the wonder that is Facebook, in our opinion.
OMG! Must go there now and see what my High School schlubs are up to!
I had heard of Myspace but didn’t really know what it was. Will have to check out now.
I did the same thing a while back and ended up finding the first girl that I ever really fell for back when I was 10. It is funny how some people turned out. The beauty queens are now drama queens, the jocks are cops and the nerds are still well…nerdy.
I was diagnosed with a terminal illness a couple of years ago and it saadens me that I never got to know some people in my life better. Maybe this is my chance.
So here is to Tom in law school and Gary is rehab and Jenny with her five kids. Live well guys! This guy misses you!
Thank you for making me think! Come by my blog and say hello some time.
MySpace is addictive. You can log in just to check your messages and comments and end up surfing some random people’s pages, hours later.
As for aging. My 10th reunion is this year. I’m toeing the line on whether or not I want to go. I’ve gained 10lbs, but that’s a good thing. I was skin and bone then.
I just had a reunion with a friend I hadn’t seen in 15 years. And we both decided that we are exactly the same, only now we aren’t skinny, gangly, we can drink, and we have boobs.
Good times.
Yeah I can’t decide if I look exactly the same or older and different.
i hate myspace. even though i have a profile there. if i wanted to be found by random high school people, i’d still be talkign to them. lol
on sunday my mother in law and sister in law told me that i’ve aged alot since high school! i was like OMG what? and they said no not like i look old but that my face has changed alot…got narrower…lost baby fat etc.
i know about myspace, but i didn’t know you can search by high school graduation date!
well, i guess i know what i’ll be doing for the next hour…
p.s. i kinda miss the old banner.
but the new one is nice too….um, what is it?
LOL!! OMG!!
Okay, I confess…I had to go look for high school cronies on MySpace! Everybody is istill just the same although I have to admit that it’s rather disturbing to see pictures of people with their kids. Are any of us really old/mature enough to have kids??? When did that happen???
I’m getting ready for my 20th… God, I can hardly even type that number without cringing. Thanks for the MySpace tip. I’m totally out of the generation who uses it, but I’ll check to see if anyone from my high school days is there, midlife crises and all.
Hi, I’m new. I first discovered these sites thru Virg’s site. It’s a relief to finally find some people on the net with some brains and some compassion. I was getting so depressed. I visited these other sites and they all seemed so trivial. Not that my whole life is the net, but I do suffer from loneliness. It’s nice to hear people talk. It’s a comfort hearing your voices. Christ, yeah. What you were saying about getting older, I noticed it in myself the other day, and I’ll be feeling it worse than you, coz I’m thirty three. I’ve always looked young for my age, but I looked in thr me mirror and thought “oh shit, crow’s feet…” I didn’t even bother going to my high school reunion. My experience is, what’s the point of standing around and hearing how people have had a new extension put on the house? I live in an apartment, and that’s fine with me. But you know. All I wanna do is save a little money and then go travelling. Anyway, nice to see your blog. Adios FN.
Oh great, now I’m going to end up killing more time surfing for old friends on MySpace, I’ve avoided making a profile there for many of the reasons you stated (if it is weird doing it at 26 imagine so at 40..ack!)
I am a myspace girl…though not an addict. I don’t even log in that much anymore, but it has reunited me with some of my friends from school (I was a military brat and changed schools often) and it hasn’t been all that bad….
I’m a facebook girl. But not going to high school in the US makes mySpace less exciting. …Now I’m wondering how my friends from high school look today.
I didn’t know you could do that! Now I totally have to join MySpace.
It’s like a high school reunion without having to lose any pounds or fake that smile, or any of the other stuff I wasn’t planning on doing.
Cheers!