High School Reunions

I hated high school. I didn't fit in. There are about 10 million essays that began with those two sentences. I wasn't very good at anything. Average height and weight, average looks, average smarts. No performing talent, so so in sports. I had no group I hung out with. Ate lunch quietly in the library because I had no one to sit with in the cafeteria.
It was a good sized school and I just got lost in the maze.
Periodically, all these years later, I'm contacted by a couple of guys who did have a great time back then. They were always considered cool and only hung out with other cool people. They ask if I would like to meet them and another cool fellow for dinner. I always make an excuse. I don't go to any of the official reunions. Who needs to be reminded of a lousy time in one's life? I suppose in some ways we never leave high school. There's always going to be competition, but one presumably develops a thicker skin as one ages. Those four years of adolescence are raw emotion without a filter.
I know if I went they would mention their kids and grand kids and how well they're doing. They'll discuss their terrific careers and their investments and summer homes. And little by little I would slide back into the nonentity I was considered to be by these very same people back then.
So I keep my distance, keep moving forward. Keep publishing, hitting the gym, power walking away from those bad memories.