Sometimes when I have to visit my old home town I encounter people that used to be my class "mates": junior high, upper secondary school... Once I saw one from junior high. She looked pretty much as she did in the ninth grade as a sidekick to a bully. I recognised her and immediately decided to ignore her, pretend I didn't know her. The same thing happened last year at the Polytechnic when one other "classmate" from junior high applied and got in to study nursing. Luckily we didn't end up in the same class.
I can understand why some people don't leave that place since they have no education and even if they did their grades are too lousy to help them get in a university or even in a Polytechnic. But then there are those who did moderately at school and yet stayed. Why the fuck would they do that? Why would they freewillingly stay live and make their lives in the same small town in which their parents and relatives live? And on top of that, their spouses (straight, of course) are also from the same town. Inbreeding... seriously.
Today, in the street of my current home town, I came across with a "friend" or a buddy or an acquitance from upper secondary school. She looked a bit different but not that much since I recognised her immediately (though I did have to check twice more to be sure, by which time she had recognised me). She left to Polytechnic after we graduated from high school, and I only heard from her once, after my father's death when she sent a condolences card. She was walking down the street with who I assume is her boyfriend (didn't ask even his name; I am just so good at unexpected social encounters that I either remember the things I'm supposed to say a couple of hours later, or even if I did remember them in time it tends to be on occasion in which I choose to disregard them as I have no desire to be polite to whomever I happen to be speaking with). She said she had graduated from the Polytechnic and is now moving to my town as she was accepted as a student at the university... majoring in no other subject than business studies.
But that's not the point. The point is that I feel insulted. This is my town. It's bad enough to have my sister here (although I have to admit that luckily we rarely see each other even at the university) but now... The very reason I left K-shire was to get away from all those people I had to be in contact with: my family, my relatives, my school "mates"... everyone. I wanted to start anew, in a place no one had any presumptions of me due to my family or my school days... I wanted to be free of all that. And now it's just getting worse!
