People Divulge How The 'Lonely Guy' In High School Turned Out
A Redditor asked: 'What happened to the lonely guy of your high school class?'
CW: suicide.
When we're asked how the "lonely guy" in high school was, we can all think back and come up with an example.
Some peers may have referred to them as weird for keeping to themselves, but sometimes, it's surprising what they end up achieving after all those years of seeming isolation.
Curious about others' experiences, Redditor Sad-[c-word]-420 asked:
"What happened to the lonely guy in your high school class?"
Major Career Move
"Well, I just googled him, and he's a Georgetown law professor."
- BulletDodger
A Simple, Happy Life
"The person I always thought of as possibly lonely retained the same couple of friends for the past 13 years, and they still seem to enjoy getting together and doing the things they did back then. Video games, anime, etc."
- ptbus0
The Lost Friendship
"I lost touch. You can't be a one-way street to someone forever."
- NewPickleballer
Data Science Things
"He is sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."
"I am sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."
- zykezero
Tragic Therapy
"He didn’t like to be around people much, so he spent a lot of time riding his motorcycle alone, which he said he found therapeutic. He died at 20 in a motorcycle accident."
- Disastrous-Year571
Sometimes The Loneliness Sticks
"Still lonely, However, he worked his way up within a KFC franchise through high school and bought his first house early on even though he didn’t do well at school. Then he worked in the army for 10 years and bought properties number two and three. "
"Now he works as a director on a cruise liner and goes from country to country by himself."
"No partners or girlfriends ever, but he's financially well off."
- ethereumminor
Secret Model
"He became an actual model for high-class perfumes and brands and not one those Instagram or TikTok 'models.'"
- dkguy90
"I was in the suburbs of Buffalo. A super quiet, shy, plain girl everyone kind of ignored, was modeling on runways in Paris or doing high fashion photo shoots in NYC from about age 13. No one knew until Senior year when she had her portfolio with her because some journalist was going to interview her at school."
- NYCandleLady
Shoutout to the Late Bloomers
"I got a degree, got married, and started a career. Not much different from others, just started later."
- Ben_Thar
Success Stories
"He grew several inches after high school and went into tech. HE was very successful and now has a supermodel wife and a beautiful family."
"Another guy became a pediatric surgeon. He was married and had a daughter... Over the years his wife disappeared from his Facebook post and it was just him and his daughter. In a few years ago, he married a supermodel Eastern European nurse."
- wastingtoomuchthyme
Nothing Short of Tragic
"He joined the army and then literally went AWOL two years later. No one has seen or heard from him since. His mom posts his missing person flier up on my hometown's Facebook page every year on his birthday. It's really f**king sad."
- nails_for_breakfast
Funny in the End
"He became an entrepreneur of a really successful company."
"He employed the three jokers who used to bully the heck out of him. They still don't know who he is."
- AbsurdFormula0
"'Employed the three jokers.'"
"Is he Batman?"
- panzer22222
Hard Work Pays Off
"That was me. I always sat at my own table with the occasional foreign exchange student."
"I got out of school and worked really hard. I just turned 48 and I still haven't peaked. I have a large portfolio of real estate and do a lot of traveling."
"I wanted something more for myself but I didn't really have that confidence until after school. I now live an incredible life. There is hope for us losers who aren't afraid of a little work."
- kjschaben
Wishing Them Well
"He was the smartest person I ever met. He was very quiet, kept to himself, and did 110 percent on anything he was ever given to do. He always got the best scores."
"Me and my best friend were the second and third place, but it wasn’t worth chasing first place with him around. We always tried to be his friend, but he wasn’t interested in friends. He was always polite but didn’t seem to want friends. He always accepted me as a friend on social media though, and we were always friendly."
"I was 21 when he posted for the first time on Facebook. It was a suicide note. Thank God someone got to him in time. I messaged him after and let him know I understood and he could talk to me."
"He sent me a long message back, and I understood so much of what he was saying. The constant pressure to be perfect, the trap of trying to please your parents, the spiral downwards when you realize you aren’t a superhuman… I had no idea how much pressure his parents were putting on their kids."
"We talked for a bit, but he eventually stopped responding, and I moved to a different country."
"I hope he’s doing well now, he is an amazing guy. Love ya Scott, if you ever see this."
- lorealashblonde
A Thriving Life
"He ended up graduating top of the class, got a full-ride scholarship to Cornel, got his master's, makes seven figures a year, and is happily married with two kids."
"I was one of his few friends in high school and the dude is doing amazing in all aspects of his life."
- Superb-Pattern-1253
Doing Just Fine
"I don't really know what happened to anyone from high school, and I'm okay with that."
- FireyToots
"Found the fellow lonely person."
- Kiltemdead
"So it seems the lonely guy from your high school class is doing fine."
- CleaningMySlate
"I don’t know why, but this made me really proud of myself. Thank you random internet person for making this other random internet person feel good."
- FireyToots
Thinking back on high school, it's surreal to think about all the people we knew but have lost touch with, unable to really know what's going on in their lives anymore.
But some of us might hold a special place for the quiet kids and wondering how their lives turned out. Just because they were quiet in school doesn't have to mean that they didn't make huge change after graduation.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Not everyone has the best memories of high school, so it stands to reason that they might not be the most excited about attending their high school reunions.
For those who actually do attend, they're able to confirm that the events are not all they're cracked up to be and are sometimes, quite frankly, a little bit strange or surreal.
Redditor Zdvj asked:
"People who attended their high school reunion, what was the biggest surprise?"
Stuck in the Past
"My 10-year reunion was held at a bar. It was all the same people at the bar as it was every weekend, but this time they were wearing nicer clothes."
- survivalguyledeuce
All Grown Up
"Back in high school, there was one girl who was extremely popular, extremely pretty, and seemed totally unapproachable from my vantage point."
"She was also really catty, embodying a lot of the 'Mean Girl' stereotypes."
"Talking with her at the reunion, it turned out that she was very insecure, and had a very tenuous home life for which she was compensating and now she is extremely kind, full of gratitude, and just really down to earth. I love seeing that sort of change in people!"
- Hetvenfour
Excruciating Detail
"The only high school reunion I attended was my 50th. I was surprised that people remembered things I'd done with amazing detail specificity."
- zoosuitbeatnick
Past Crushes
"At some point during our 10-year reunion, I asked the girl I had a crush on back in seventh or eighth grade if she knew that I had a crush on her. I just thought it was fun talking about that as adults."
"As it turns out, she texted me several times during the next few days, we met again, and now, almost six years later, we're engaged (for two years... but didn't marry yet) we have a house, a child, second child on the way and everything is great."
"Not what I expected back then!"
- juleztb
Forgetting Everyone
"That I couldn't remember anyone."
"Everyone remembered me because I was the freak in high school, and people kept coming up to me and being like, 'Scienceforbid, it's so great to see you.'"
"And I kept having to run to the wall where they'd plastered blown-up yearbook photos to figure out who the f**k anybody was."
- scienceforbid
The Aging Process
"How incredibly differently have people aged."
- Loud_Adagio2222
"I’ve never seen men age/gray so quickly as when they increase the size of their family."
- JMDeutsch
"I've noticed this at work. I'm the youngest guy in my department, and most of my coworkers are 50+. But guessing the actual ages of any of them, or even who is older than someone else is really difficult. Some of the guys look really old in their early 50s, while others are nearly 70 and relatively young."
"There are lots of factors, the job they've had, genetics, how well they take care of themselves, etc. But by far the biggest factor is kids. The guys without kids all look great for their age. While the guys with kids look like they've lived a rough life."
"It's a couple of decades worth of differences like increased financial stress and worse sleep that causes the fathers to age more quickly."
- MazerRakam
Job Choices
"Real estate agents. So many real estate agents."
- Hectordoink
"And 'entrepreneurs' and life coaches. Really, they seemed to be there to market their services."
- TrenchardsRedemption
Uninvited
"The reunion itself."
"My wife was down in the state south of us for training and got into an accident. I went down and got things sorted with her so she was good and went back to what she was doing and I drove back north. It was a Friday and I was driving through my hometown and figured I would take my mother out to a restaurant we used to both really like going to."
"As we were eating, an old friend from high school walked through, waved, and headed into the back. Then another, and another, and another. Just as I was about to get up and go see what was going on an old girlfriend and later good friend walked in, saw me, and came up to talk for a bit. Then she asked if we should head back there, which confused me."
"Turns out I made it to the 10th year reunion for my class without knowing that I was at the 10th year reunion for my class. I finished my dinner with my mom, let her take my car home (I would catch a ride), and had a good night at the reunion I didn't know to expect."
- ACorania
Survival Stories
"A guy had cancer and attended. He looked to be 80 years old but was in his late 20s. Cancer really took a toll on him. Sad."
- Tuesday2017
Career Choices
"The biggest surprise anytime I catch up with people I grew up with is finding out their career. Most of us have pretty unremarkable jobs but some that stood out:"
"The guy who got arrested for underaged drinking three times is now a cop."
"The girl who couldn’t form a coherent sentence is now a teacher."
"The super genius is living in poverty because he decided to move to Costa Rica to save the rainforest."
"The bad kid joined the Army and now runs a small business and is doing very well for himself."
"The weirdo became a DJ and does shows at nightclubs."
"The nerdy D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) kid now owns and operates an outdoor shooting range and is one of the largest ammunition suppliers in the area."
- PM_Me_UrRight
The Late Classmates
"It was disturbing that 17 classmates had died by our 10th reunion."
- Back2Bach
"We had a lot of kids die with in the first 5 years after graduation. Can't remember the exact number, but it was in the neighborhood of like 20."
"Don't remember all of them, it was a weird mix of stuff. Three died in the same car crash, five to ten were OD-related deaths. At least one murder."
"We were a class of 650."
"Still, felt weird that there were that many deaths. We went to a pretty decent school in a nice area."
- Main-Yogurtcloset-82
Feeling Excluded
"The last I ever heard of my high school reunion was in an alumni newsletter. I was listed as 'missing' with a request for anyone who knew how to contact me to contact the alumni organization."
"The newsletter was sent to my house."
"I’m trying not to take it personally…"
- Someoneoverthere42
Surprising Turnout
"At the ten-year, one guy who had been a kind of a nerd and on the bowling team was now part of a 'wacky morning DJ' crew on one of the more popular radio stations in New York City, and came in with big hair and dressed like a rock star."
- brock_lee
Alternate Endings
"The only real 'surprise' was just how wrong we were about how people would turn out."
"The ivy-league bound people you were sure would be CEOs one day, ended up dropping out of college, having normal middle-class lives, jobs, and marriages, and just being happy as 'average.'"
"The people you were sure would end up like Wooderson from School Daze, turned out to get Master's degrees and even PhDs in one case, and now work in either government or aerospace."
"The guy who fought to get into West Point, ended up doing his required four years and then leaving the armed services."
"One guy ended up becoming a semi-successful author, and nobody saw that coming."
"The girl who got pregnant at 16, who you were sure was destined for a life of struggle, ended up landing a great career and retiring early. And her kids turned out to be great people who any parent would be proud of."
"The people you were sure would never lose contact with their friend group, vanished as if they never existed."
"The people who had to ask yourself, 'I don't recall that name at all, did they graduate in my class?' are now friends with 75% of the class on Facebook and active!"
"The athletes (boys and girls) are now anything but athletes, overweight, and frumpy."
"The frumpy dumpy ones now are rock climbers and hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail."
"IT JUST GOES TO SHOW: Who you are on graduation day is absolutely not who you will become in three, five, ten, or thirty years. The future is yet unwritten, and the only thing stopping you from change is yourself."
- whomp1970
Many of these Redditors shared in the woes so many of us experienced during those rough high school years, but because they also toughed it out and went to at least one reunion, we're able to see all that we are, and are not, missing out on by potentially not attending.
Sometimes it's surreal to bring people back from the past.
Teachers Reveal The Most Surprising Things They've Learned About Their Students While Attending A High School Reunion
Haven't you always wondered if teachers keep journals with names and descriptions of the students that made an impression (for better of worse) over the years? They must have a curiosity about how everybody turns out, especially when it comes to the high school or college age kids. They must make mental notes about the girl who will be President or carry a mental scare from the boy who rankled them so often that by graduation it wasn't just water in the water bottle. Reunions are the best way to find out all of those answers, well if they get the invite.
Redditor wanted the teachers out there to share some facts about former pupils by asking.... Teachers who regularly get invited to high school reunions, what are the most amazing transformations, common patterns, epic stories, saddest declines etc. you've seen through the years?