Meet Me, My Best Friend

Occassion: Vidyapeeth Highschool 1985-86 batch Re-union. Kolhapur..
I have never felt so lonely in a social occassion. There I was, standing amongst familiar (and some not so familiar) faces. Some came forward and shook hands, others required introductions. Some deliberately ignored. However people were jolly and at the same time nostalgic. In general the mood was up-beat.
We went through the routine rig-morale of finding what people are doing now (or who-is-who) I was asked to introduce myself. It was a moment in remiss, they wanted to know what I do for living. Not that many cared. I did not try very hard. It is hard enough to explain to my wife what I do in a software company with a designation of IT Architect, it is practically impossible to explain it to bunch of strangers (well..er let us say remotely familiar people). I was also not aware how many of them knew about computers and internet in general. Then there was a form to fill in. Some took very deep interest in filling it in, assuming that would be printed in a class directory. I filled in the relevant part, ignored 'achievement's section...well I had none to note anyway and put 'reading' under hobbies.
Thinking about it...it is not rational on my part to expect them to know me. I was hardly at the school for 2-years, that too in two different divisions. My thinning hair and broadaning face did not help either. There were some close friends (in fact I hoped for more of this species..). They were also not that close as I expected. Probably they just got old.
In short everything was happy, nice get-together but I was feeling terribly lonely. Travelling back to home today, I imagined of number of things I could have told them. About my hobbies, about my cooking, about my family, about my world travels, about my professional achievements (if they could understand it :-)...then it finally occurred to me, just like that...the occassion was not to know about 'unknown' people, it was to know more about 'known' people. I was unknown then and I am unknown now. Obviously nobody was interested in knowing me.
It also occurred to me that I do not have many friends in my social circle (or is it otherway round? social circle is made of friends? not sure...). I could count few from school on my fingers and probably few from college in remaining. In the college-friends group there is always discussion of a reunion. Thankfully we never get to actually doing it...now don't assume that I simply hate people, but on social occassions I do not know what I could converse with them. Everybody is interested in how much money you make, what you do for living, how many kids you have. Probably socially these are the only things that you could ask. Very few would be actually interested in knowing, how you are. Is that what makes me run away from such social occassions? Maybe...
Probably it is better for everybody, that I stay away from reunions of such 'known' people. I probably could converse with myself better than most of these people anyway. Is there an inclination to stay with me always? Maybe I am the only person I could befriend with (little scary isn't it?). Maybe I am not a social animal after all...