For me, apparently, that age is 37.

Earlier this week I checked my email and found something from an old friend, Skye, who made the end of middle school and beginning of high school not only bearable and actually enjoyable. We’ve never been as close as adults as we were in those years, but we’ve kept in loose touch.

When we were kids, though, she was a near-perfect friend for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that she believed strongly, as I did, that my destiny included a lavish wedding to Robby Benson.

Friends support each other like that.

Friends do NOT make each other feel old by sending them links to Web sites for their 20th high school reunions. Holy heck, is that a fish bone in my throat? Oh, no, it’s just my TWENTIETH. HIGH. SCHOOL. REUNION.

I should say up front that it’s unlikely I’ll attend the festivities this summer. All my fellow Titans can gather beachside and listen to our (and every other Class of ’87) class song, "Stand By Me." They can remember the year that was 1987, when both Prozac and "Moonstruck" were released, the Supreme Court ordered Rotary Clubs to accept women and James Baldwin died, four events that were, ostensibly, unrelated.

Perhaps Steve Winwood will remind the alums of "A Higher Love."

I think I’ll pass.

Reunions make no sense to me.

Sure, there are people who come to my mind every now and again, and I wonder where life has taken them. But I always go back to the logic that, if we were such good friends that we should still be in touch, I’d just cyber-stalk them and track them down using public records like real estate transactions and arrest reports. That’s how they always find me.

I don’t need a reunion to stay in touch with the people I cared about.

Maybe if my class had been smaller, I would feel differently. My best friend in the world grew up in a small Wisconsin town and attended an even smaller school. Every student knew every other student and they all had known each other since nursery school. She loves her reunions, which happen in five-year intervals. Of course, the class was so small, it’s possible to hold their reunions in a Ford Explorer.

My school, on the other hand, was large enough that I might as well go to a reunion of people who went to the local mall the Saturday of my graduation. In fact, I probably would see more people I remember at that mall reunion.

But at this stage in the game, reunions are the most fun for people who are making good on a 20-year-old vow to Show Them All by showing up in a sports car, dripping with diamonds and dazzling everyone with tales of their exploits as Nobel Prize-winning Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. That AND spinach dip in a bread bowl may just be too much fun for me.

Decades from now, high school reunions might start to get interesting. I may break down and go to my 50th or 60th reunions, just to see who’s still got original teeth, who’s married to a 21-year-old trophy spouse, who’s still continent. Now that’s a party.

Until then, I’ll skip the reunions. And floss a lot.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who believes it’s Robby Benson’s loss. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@hughes.net.