Answer the question Claire ...

I recently was at an event where someone asked me if I liked someone in my High School class.
Upon first thought my answer would have been no because truth be told we ran in different circles. After thinking about it for a little while, and after a few years of life under my belt I can truthfully say I did not know her.  And that is what I replied, I did not know her. There were 225 girls in my high school class and I did not have classes with a lot of them. I did not get to know many of them. And I suspect those same girls say the same about me.  Some may think they know me from Facebook but they do not.  Because I do not share my life on Facebook and unless they see, call or text me personally and frequently, they do not know me.

It is a rainy, windy thunderstorm Saturday today and very rarely do I watch movies on cable TV in the afternoon but since a bike ride is out of the question, I can watch The Breakfast Club.   This movie was released in 1985 and is 30 years old this year.

Since I am the youngest of 9 kids with many siblings near the age of the movie characters and my 20 year reunion from high school is approaching, I feel I am qualified to discuss the topic of "where are The Breakfast Club personas right now."

Starting with the initial meeting of the five stereotypical high school personas, if they had not all had detention on the same day would they know each other? If someone asked Claire today, did you know Andy? Did you like Andy? What would she have said had that detention day not happened?
She probably would have said what I said in my recent meeting. I did not know him.

So where are they now:

Brian - the Brain: After high school, Brian would have realized there is a great big world out there beyond his known surroundings for 18 years. He would have realized that there are many brains out there like him. He probably learned to have a little fun with beer in college, liquor after college and he settled into a job using his knowledge developing something that we all use a lot of today.  He found a down to earth nice girl but ignores her because he is still a little bitter from high school and chooses sci-fi conventions and movies over finding happiness with the right girl.  He just wants to take care of himself and is too smart for his own good when it comes to love.

Andy - the Jock: Andy went to college and mastered the frat party and got a job from his family connections and who he knows.  He has managed to skate through life unscathed. He eventually found a woman of similar lifestyles and family background, got married and moved to the suburbs while working in middle sales management.   He possibly works with Brian in Product operations and development.

Claire - the Princess:   After her fling with danger in the Summer of 1985 Claire realizes she wants more materialism. She wants nice things and wants a man in her life that can create a life of perfection on the surface, Nothing is perfect in reality but not knowing her and the new man, no one will ever know what is really under the perfect life they have created.  They will have trophy kids that she post on facebook for likes and praise from others for life validation.  She will be at the 30 year reunion pretending to be happy and probably bitterly divorced at the 50 year reunion when the husband leaves her for a younger model.

The Basketcase;  Not realizing how pretty she was and her potential living in the shadows of the cliques around her and her family, she starts to come into her own and realize that she can make something of her self if she works hard and is herself.  She has tendency to bully others but she works past those self confidence issues every day. After ten years she reconnects with Claire and they try to be friends as adults but they realize they are too different and want different things out of life. They value different things.

Bender - The Criminal:  Not realizing his full potential and just wanting to be "happy" and sub par, he settles into a blue collar job, makes a decent living but nothing that will make him rich and enjoys the occasional bar stool at the corner neighborhood watering hole with old neon signs and stale smoke smell.  Given his background and the little he applied himself in school, he doesn't know he can set the bar higher so he doesn't and just does the minimal to be happy, drunk and alive.

The Principal:  Now entering retirement, he realizes that the youth he educated is self absorbed and unmotivated.  He finally gets that his retirement of SS and Medicare cannot count on the generation he should inspired and taught instead of bitched at, judged and felt bitter towards.

The Janitor: Won the lottery, took the lump sum payout after taxes and skipped the country to travel abroad.