Should I stay home or should I go to my high school reunion?

For some it’s a certainty. You go and reconnect with old friends with whom you shared unique and often life-changing experiences.

For others, high school and the teenage years were filled with nothing but bad and ugly  memories. You’d just as soon flush those years down the toilet and move on with life.

I’m going for two good reasons.

First, my high school years were great, and there are folks from those years who I’d like to see and who still have a piece of my heart.

Second, it’s a great opportunity to connect and reconnect. The importance of men  connecting during middle age is and will continue to be a constant theme in this column.

Guys often don’t get it. Social loneliness is rampant among our ranks. We’re pre-occupied with work and give what’s left to our families. More often than not, our friendships are unattended, fallow and full of weeds.

And the ladies? They’re constantly connecting, updating and capitalizing on their relationships with their girlfriends.

Doubt me? I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Google “Girlfriends and getaways.” You’ll get more than a million offerings.

My wife’s older sister, Susan, has taken connecting with high school friends up a notch. Rather than waiting for the big reunions, she and a group of her female high school buddies, all of whom are based on the East Coast, rendezvous each year at different locations.

“Sometimes you go to those reunions, and you sit and don’t recognize anyone,” she said. “This way (with my girlfriends) I’m with people I know and that I shared a lot of memories.”

When I visited my daughter Katie in Seattle, I reconnected (through Facebook) with an old high school buddy, Peter. He set me up with free tickets to the Seattle Sounders soccer game while we were there.

We caught up on each other’s lives while watching the game. He’s a professional photographer and offered to get together and talk with my daughter who has an interest in the field. When we went our separate ways we promised to stay in touch.

Another high school buddy, Don, now  an economics professor at Syracuse University, connected with me after reading my articles in the local newspaper. Over engaging lunches we talked about my writings about middle age guys and Don even gave me good insight from an economic and sociological perspective.

Getting back to high school reunions. I just mailed mailed my $50 check for my reunion’s clam bake.

Who knows? Like my sister-in-law, I may get in touch with some old friends from the soccer and track teams I was on and decide to make a meet up an annual thing, rather than every 10 years. (Guy’s getaway anyone?)

I just wonder if Eduardo, who embarrassed me in front of my prom date by pouring a pitcher of beer on my head at a party, will be there.

It’s been years, but I owe him one.