Thought You Knew: After High School, Time to Break Up With Old 'Friends'

If you were in the Cape Henry Collegiate School class of 2007, we need to talk. I think we’re at different stages of life right now.
I know you all still like to hang out and I appreciate the invitations to get together over breaks and the Facebook messages, but I think it’s time we see other people.

It’s not me, it’s you and I think it’d be best if we don’t keep in touch.
There are so many reasons to look forward to going home for winter break: I get to see my dog, watch every episode of every teenage soap opera from the early 2000’s and wear the same pair of leggings for several days in a row.

Plus, there’s always the chance that Seasonal Affective Disorder will rear its ugly head.

But, amidst all of the joy, I can’t help but be reminded of how much the few people I interact with whom I’m not related to suck.

I’m never really home, so I haven’t had the time or felt the need to go out and make new friends, but after a few days of Star Wars marathons and baking cupcakes at four in the morning, my parents start to question my sanity and “encourage” me to contact the old Cape Henry crew.

They’ll start asking subtly what everyone’s up to or mention how they recently ran into someone’s mom at the grocery store. Stage two begins when they ask what specific people are doing over break. And then, once I say that I neither know, nor care, they kick me out of the house and make me interact with the human race.

The tedious, shallow human race that doesn’t talk about anything other than the frat parties it goes to in college, where people drink alcohol—which you’ve probably never heard of until right now.

I’m probably just bitter because no one gets my jokes.

I don’t hate everyone from high school, but they’re strangers to me and I don’t really feel the need to spend hours in forced conversation and rehashing the past with strangers.

What I’m saying, high school classmates, is that I don’t dislike you; you just don’t matter to me.

Hopefully I don’t matter to you, either.

I’ve talked to a ton of people here about this. Most of them agree that they either dread the rare occasions in which they feel obligated to visit with old friends or have already sworn off seeing them, favoring all of the stigma associated with a month of playing The Sims for 17 hours a day to tiresome dinners with tiresome people.

This made me wonder if everyone actually feels this way on some level. Maybe the girls who still try to plan annual parties, get really into high school alumni events and then post pictures online only do this because they feel like they have to.

It’s possible that none of us are having fun, but they’re just better at hiding it.

The idea of friendships being expendable like this is disconcerting, but why prolong relationships that don’t actually exist anymore? I don’t owe these people anything beyond the basic human decency that everyone (other than my enemy) deserves and listening to them prattle on causes me actual physical pain.

Of course, there are a few with whom I still keep in touch, but as a group, I’m just not that into them.Thou