Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

"Class of 99," read the invitation. "Ten year reunion."

Words to strike horror into the heart of any sane thirtysomething. The invitation itself was friendly enough, glossy card covered with enticing photographs of the classiest of the campus bars. Tickets were reasonably priced and there was no objection to bringing partners.

And there we hit the first obstacle. There is every objection to bringing partners to a gathering of chums from student days, especially if you haven't seen said chums for a decade.

Look at yourself now. Steady relationship, maybe a kid or three. A mortgage you don't really want to talk about at the moment, thank you. A shelf of cookery books you like to look at but can't quite find the time to use for actual cooking. Your idea of a good night is tucking up the children with a kiss then vegetating in front of The Wire box set with a tub of ice cream.

Now think back to a time when your idea of a good night was something you can't actually remember. When you thought nothing of walking home alone at half past two in the morning, because, hey, it's all right, you've got a mobile phone the size of a brick and you can always bludgeon anyone who tries to attack you. When the bloke in the kebab van admired your mini skirt and doubted you wore knickers, so you showed them to him to prove you did, and he felt sorry for you and gave you a free can of Tango. When you set fire to your friend's hair trying to light her cigarette because you didn't smoke and couldn't get the hang of the lighter. When you ended up dancing on the stage of the students' union with the troupe of professional dancers on 70s night. Four times. Sober. When you pined unrequitedly for men who would have appalled your mother. You're not that person anymore. The relief is palpable. Do you really want to take your partner anywhere near anyone who might tell him what you got up to?

Conversely, those mates you partied with remember you as a mad-for-it goodtime girl, the first to lead the charge to the dance floor. Do you really want them to see you as you are now, with grey roots and crow's feet, opaque tights to cover the incipient varicose veins, yawning at nine thirty and preoccupied with the allotment? Wouldn't it be kinder to let them keep those memories unsullied? That's always supposing they can remember even as much as you about it all.

Then there's the agony of being compared with your peers. There will be at least one who has done stupendously well, who thrives in a challenging but rewarding career which she combines with bringing up two beautiful children and keeping an immaculate home for her handsome, successful husband. There will be others, less high-flying, but happy in the careers they've built on their degree. You got halfway through the course and realised you'd made a huge mistake, but you were too scared to back out. You saw it through but now you're in a dead end job and you couldn't bear your old friends to know that you wasted your potential so shamefully. If you told them, they'd commiserate to your face then gloat about it to their other half all the way home. No, that's not an option. No-one ever goes to a reunion and says how awful their life is.

Time is not kind to students. You agree to go because you think it will be a laugh, that all the familiar faces will be there. You will walk into that room and at first you will think you've come to the wrong place, or on the wrong night, because you don't know anyone. Then you realise that the ancient crone by the bar is the girl from your tutorial group your flatmate wanted to pull, and the balding lech with the pot belly is the stud you cried yourself to sleep over for weeks. And you know they're looking at you and thinking, "God, she's let herself go." The riotous evening of drink and reminiscence you foresaw turns out to be a never-ending ordeal of small talk about the effects of the recession.

This is where sites like Friends Reunited come in. You can find out what people are doing from the comfort of your own home, not standing in a bar that's seedier than you remember, drinking overpriced wine because you don't qualify for subsidised alcohol any more.

I read the invitation, grimaced a bit, and filed it somewhere random. A few weeks later a friend asked if I was going. I didn't think anyone would remember me. That didn't stop me hoping secretly that when the night came someone would be looking round wondering where I was if I wasn't there.

The photo album came out from the back of the wardrobe. Did I really dress that badly? Why didn't someone stop me? I wondered what happened to the people in these photos. Out of the large group I thought of as my friends, I'm in touch with maybe three on a stronger basis than Christmas cards. If we manage to meet once a year, we think we're doing well. If it wasn't for Facebook, that illusion of friendship, some might be given up entirely to vague memory. It was tempting to give in to curiosity, revisit the haunts of my youth and see how badly everyone had aged. And suddenly I missed my friends. I missed the fun we had. I was sorry I hadn't tried harder to stay in touch. Nostalgia is a powerful force. It drives us back to places we can never reach.

I resisted. The album went back in the wardrobe. I didn't go to the reunion. That didn't stop me looking at the alumni website a couple of weeks after the event and finding a list of those who attended. I recognised maybe five of the names. One of them was my first crush. There were photos.

Dearie, dearie me...