23 Weird Things About You That Only Your Friends From Home Know

1. The totally cornball songs you know every. last. lyric. to, and used to sing at the top of your lungs when driving around in your first car.

2. How terrible you used to be at holding your liquor, and the ridiculous combination of drinks you used to deem acceptable, such as Rikaloff and Hawaiian Punch served in a Nalgene.

3. Who you dated in high school, how long it lasted, and how much you do or don’t cringe while looking back on it today.

4. If you had an accent back home, and whether or not you’re trying to lose it now that you’re a grown-up. (Even though you are, of course, still liable to slip right back into said accent the second you’re around these people.)

5. Exactly just how much junk food you used to be able to consume with what seemed like complete impunity.

6. The time you threw up/peed yourself in school and had to have your mom come pick you up. (True story: once a friend from school drank so many strawberry milks on a dare that he vomited what looked like Pepto Bismol all over the lunch table in front of the entire class.)

7. The high school celebrities — not to mention actual celebrities — you had completely unhealthy crushes on.

8. How much you have actually changed since high school. (If you used to have heavy orthodontic equipment and sit in the back of the class drawing tribal patterns, they’re not going to say it, but they know.)

9. Exactly what your family is like, and how utterly weird they can be on occasion.

10. The (often totally irrational) dreams you had and used to talk about while staying up all night in your childhood bedroom.

11. The version of you that was incredibly entertained by passing around a bottle of wine while sitting together in a parked car at 11:30 at night.

12. How bad a driver you were at first, and the various fender-benders you got yourself into when just barely out of learner’s permit status.

13. The classes in high school you used to so completely not care about that it was honestly shocking you even showed up at all.

14. All of the fashion faux pas you used to make in middle/high school. Everything from Hot Topic t-shirts, to tattoo chokers, to back pocket-less jeans, they remember it.

15. The utter magic of the summers spent while everyone was home from school, especially the one where you were all finally old enough to frequent the local bars that used to look so adult and untouchable when you were growing up — but which were actually just normal, boring bars.

16. Exactly how far you’ve come on a professional/academic level, which your new friends can technically hear about, but they can’t really appreciate.

17. Whether or not you had an older sibling who could legally acquire contraband, and were therefore a minor celebrity amongst the social group.

18. The ridiculously embarrassing/lame job you had when you were 16 years old. (And be glad, whatever it was, that it wasn’t Coldstone, and therefore your friends couldn’t come in and force you to sing for their amusement.)

19. The unacceptable things you used to talk about in your Livejournal/Xanga.

20. The name you used to go by, if you changed it.

21. Speaking of names, they remember all the embarrassing nicknames you used to have between the ages of 10 and 22-ish, and you can’t get mad if that’s what they call you when you come around.

22. The completely idiotic things you used to spend your pocket/after-school job money on, especially during the phase when you still thought Abercrombie and/or Spencer’s Gifts were cool.

23. Exactly how to perfectly bring you back to earth on social media when you get a little big in the head and start to forget where you come from. One minute you’re a big shot making an announcement about your fancy new job, the next minute someone’s reminding you about that time you fell out of a crabapple tree trying to hide from your parents. Feels, good man. Feels good.