Go to the high school reunion?

John Cusack, in the movie, Gross Pointe Blank when asked what he has done since high school, responds that he has been a professional killer. How cool is that?

No, it is not necessarily cool that he kills people for a living, but being able to go to your high school reunion and tell people that you do something so incredulous - something dangerous and exciting - can make it all worth while. And, no, this should not be seen as encouragement to become contract killers. However, it is certainly easier to go back for the reunion when you have become successful.

The flip side, though is from Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion where you have not done much since graduation - or that is how your former classmates would view it - so you decide to make up a story as to how successful you have been. It can seem that it is better not to go than to make up stories about what you have been doing or - even worse - tell the unexciting truth about what you have done.

Below I offer five reasons for attending your high school reunion and five reasons not to attend your high school reunion.

1. You now have a cool new job, like professional killer, and you want to make sure that people know about it.

2. You are comfortable where you are with your life. This is a big one. It absolutely should not matter what you have done since graduating as long as you appreciate what you have done.

3. The opportunity to see how well or - a bit of snark - how poorly people have done. Often things did not turn out as well as one would have thought for that head cheerleader or the varsity quarterback.

4. You would like to visit your hometown and it gives you the excuse to do so. It might be a time to bring the spouse and kids and show them around the old stomping grounds.

5. There are people going that you truly want to see. This is the ultimate reason for choosing to attend.

1. If you go, you are just going to end up lying about all the things that you have done since graduation. (Ref: Romy & Michelle).

2. You have always kept in touch with the people who were important to you. Do you need to go back and see people who never meant anything to you or - even worse - treated you poorly back in the day.

3. You were treated badly during high school. Don't look for this to change. Many of those same petty people from high school are now petty adults.

4. The people you would want to see are not going. Particularly if you are traveling far, it becomes unclear why you would want to go see a room full of strangers.

5. A favorite: Instead of having the reunion where we actually went to school, let's have it very far away to see just how truly exclusionary we can be.

So, there are many reasons to go and many reasons not to go. However, it ultimately boils down into two choices:

• Go, if you think you will enjoy yourself and get to see old friends; or

• Don't go, if you think it will be one more chance for people to treat you badly.

That being said, a nice thing about reunions is that it is the opportunity to show people how wrong they were about you!