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Many pensioners receive invitations to reunions of various kinds, and looked at through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, they can often appear beguiling and appealing. Sadly, reunions hardly ever come up to your expectations and the sense of disappointment and regret can often blight an otherwise contented life for some considerable time.
Since at least thirty years will have passed since you last saw your classmates, colleagues or comrades, it’s highly unlikely that you will now have anything in common, and your barely disguised envy/contempt at their success/failure will only be matched by theirs of yours.
To make any of these events remotely tolerable, you should always dress in the wrong uniform – military fatigues for school reunions, welding overalls for military reunions and so on – and hiring a young, attractive escort to pass off as your latest husband/wife will also relieve the tedium to some extent.
Many reunions end in bitterness, recriminations and even violence, and in 2001, the final get-together of the four living former employees of the Wheal Meetagain tin mine in Redruth culminated in two being strangled by the commemorative banner and the other two being charged with involuntary manslaughter.