"It's a Good Thing We Didn't Meet in High School"

That was the last line in tonight's episode of Standoff, exchanged between the two leads, who're romanticly involved in the series. Over the course of the episode it became obvious to both of them that, despite their current attraction, they wouldn't have been compatible at all during high school.

I've long thought the same thing about my wife and I. Our difference in age would've precluded us from ever actually going to school together, but that detail notwithstanding, I fear we'd not have been much of a match. She was outgoing, a cheerleader, no doubt a flashy dresser, one of the cool kids, and totally into the high school experience; I was an introvert, a non-conformist, wore clothes that had never been in fashion (nor probably ever would), didn't really hang out with any crowd to call my own, and had nothing but disdain for the five years of my life wasted there (I didn't even attend any of the graduation events, for example). So what could possibly have attracted us to each other, had a disturbance in the space-time continuum somehow deposited us within proximity of each other way back then? I suspect: not a thing.

Fortunately, though, such matters matter not. High school's a five (now, four) year odyssey that, it turns out, has very little to do with the rest of your life (that meager 40 to 70 years that follows it). And for my money, that's a really good thing.