University reunion

Is up to you but I wouldn’t go because it wouldn’t matter to me, I would feel that I had nothing to prove to anyone.
You shouldn’t go if you feel anxious is supposed to be a fun event and there is no point putting yourself through the wringer for no good reason.
I see you as a successful person who should be proud of what she has achieved. Give yourself a bit of applause and then decide whether you want to tolerate a bunch of people you didn’t really know first time round.
Instead put your glad rags on and go out somewhere nice to celebrate your joint successes with your DH.
All the best.

Can you take DH with you for moral support?

I went back to my old boarding school after about 30 years because we were all turning 50 and several had died. There was no showing off though many girls had come from very posh backgrounds.
By that stage we were all more confident in our skins and it was fun to be reminded of teachers and naughty things we'd got up to.

Go but don't worry.

I agree with Babs03. Why go if it’s making you so nervous? People who didn’t care about you before won’t care now, so your happy life will mean nothing to them. (I would imagine that many of them, probably in careers they hate and perhaps can’t cope with, would envy you, if truth were told).
You’ve got it made, by the sound of it, so enjoy it! ’
(At 5’ myself, I SO envy you your height and your slim stature).:.

No, I would not go either. Why do you feel you have something to prove to these rather shallow sounding people?
Be happy you led a life of service and value the people who have always valued you.

I wouldn’t go either, unless I’d kept in touch with someone from my days there.
If by ‘booked to go’ you mean accommodation - then take your DH, enjoy a meal and an overnight stay. In Newcastle??? That’s a win-win!

Sometimes these things are best avoided unless we're sure we're going to have a wonderful time. The amount of worry and feeling uncomfortable is just not worth it. Enjoy your present lovely life.

I went with DH to his 50th reunion in 2017. So many had died or unable to go that it was deemed not worth trying for 55 th. People we had known well and had kept in touch by letter and email we know longer recognised. It was very mixed blessing. It was also very interesting to see how people we didn’t know very well had scattered over the world and in older age had the leisure to return. You might be surprised that people might well say oh you were that quiet girl who kept herself to herself. I always wished you had talked to me when I was having a rubbish time in the anatomy dept.etc etc. and you were watching me get in a mess.Inverted snobbery annoys me as I come from Liverpool and “talk posh “. If I had a £1 for every time someone has said you don’t sound as though you come from the pool I’d be a very wealthy woman. I was the first in my family to go to university ,my father left school at 14. DH went to private school but certainly can fall into scouse just like Harold Wilson (did if anyone remembers him.) Do go and take your husband and perhaps make new friends in your old age.

Can you message your flatmate?
Just say you are going and ask if they are.

If you booked you must want to go but are just having wobbles.
YOU are a success in all the ways that matter.
💐

No, I wouldn’t want to go either. Unless you can take a plus one to lean on, then chances are you’ll not enjoy it so why put yourself back into that lonely place.
FWIW, you sound a lovely person and a good GP.
No one should ever be made to feel ashamed of their roots 💐

I definitely would not go. It is not much fun if nobody speaks to you and many of them will know each other well if they have attended previous reunions. 50 is just a number and if you haven’t been to others why start now?

Never been to any reunion - grammar school or union. Never been back to anywhere I worked either. The past is another country. You’ve moved on and had a good life. I suggest going out with your DP or friend and having a nice meal instead.

Greenfinch has a good point!

You should be incredibly proud of your huge success, earned on your own merit without any privilege.
Go to that event with your head held high and do it for team ‘no privilege’.

Eleanor Roosevelt said no one can make you feel inferior except yourself. Be proud of what you have achieved which was far harder for you then it was for some of your fellow students. You have had a good happy contented life which many of them will not and they will be envious of you. Can you not take your dh- a lot of reunions offer this?

I've also been invited to a reunion this month, for people who left my (private) girls high school on the south coast in 1975.
Like you I was looked down on when I first went there, probably because I'd just spent three years living on the Wirral, had the corresponding accent and was considered not quite the type 😂

Looking back I can see this was one school move too many for me, though it was unavoidable because of my Dad's job.

I left after A Levels, went to polytechnic (didn't get the grades for university) to start a course I really had no interest in.
But... there was a room in halls, a grant cheque, my parents had sneered at everything else I wanted to do and it was a way to leave home.
In the first week I met my future husband who was there under similar circumstances!

We dropped out after a year, got jobs, bought a house and got married at 20.
Our parents weren't happy but too bad. They'd pushed us out of the nest and we took the opportunity to make our own way, which we have done.

I haven't kept in touch with anyone from school and doubt if I would even recognise them.

My husband, children, grandchildren, friends and the future are what matter to me.
The past is another country, and I didn't feel I belonged there at the time.

I've declined my invitation.

50 years on, nobody's going to recognise anybody.... let alone remember which school they went to or where their parents lived.

You're a GP; decades of experience meeting tense awkward strangers and putting them at ease. Get out there and do your thing, you'll smash it.

When DH and I have met up with old acquaintance from university it's often been an eye opener. We're all pushing 80.

We're still alive, happy, active, and have all our marbles.

Far too many of our peers have either died, or worse. Struggling along , lonely and miserable, with empty pockets and hardly any marbles left.

Mirren I enjoyed reading your story, thank you. Not sure what I would do about the reunion, but wish you well whatever you decide.

This could help you realise that you are not a nobody, you are a successful professional woman with a happy family life.
You booked a ticket so unless you really can’t face it having had a list, I would go, and slay those nagging destructive demons.
Nice dress, big smile, chat to who you do remember and you will realise you are every bit as good ( if not better) as anyone else at that venue.
Be fabulous.

DH is still friends with a (reducing) number of fellow students from his year. We see them every now and again but he has never been to a reunion.

There is no way on earth that I would go to a school reunion.

Funnily enough, I am just travelling back home from a school reunion. 50 years since we all left sixth form and went off to jobs, uni or college. We’ve had two other reunions and a few of us keep in touch via a WhatsApp group. There were only 15 of us in the end and how lovely it was to be able to move around and really catch up properly with the others. I always felt like I wasn’t one of the “in crowd” at school, but I don’t feel that now. I’m 68 and have a self-confidence I didn’t have then. My advice is to dress in something you know makes you feel comfortable and look nice and go and enjoy yourself. If you find you’re not enjoying it, just leave early. Perhaps it’s time to lay a few ghosts to rest?

Go? For curiosity sake?

I have been to 3 school reunions.
Each time, there was a different group of people there! Which was a bit odd.
The 3rd time was more the people I remembered. Some different to what they were, some the same.
Enjoyed the evening but wouldnt want to repeat very often.

I'd go. You might enjoy it.
You're a doctor. If they start irritating you, imagine them with their clothes off!

I wouldn’t go. No point stressing yourself.

I too would contact the old flatmate and then decide. Personally I would go but I like little adventures, like this. You have had a successful life both personally and professionally, a lot of people there will not been as fortunate and would have wished to have the lovely family you have. Coincidentally, I'm to-day meeting up with a "girl" I went to school with and last saw in 1968! We have both moved from our home town years ago and live in different parts of the country. However this week we are only 30 miles away from each other so meeting up. We weren't close friends at school but thanks to the old Friends Reunited site and Facebook have been in contact for years. we have very similar senses of humour and totally different life experiences. Looking forward to lots of chatting, laughing and reminiscing (and cocktails!). (Hoping you give the Reunion a go and let us know how it went)