It’s been 25 years since I put on my plastic pants, spiked my hair, tied my Japanese headband, grabbed my Police “Synchronicity” notebook and headed for class at Shawnee Mission East High School.

Memories of these horrible fashions but wonderful times were brought back this weekend when I attended my Class of 1983 high school reunion.

Because of this significant event I was forced to get a Facebook account.

The powers that be in charge of the reunion explained in January that the contact info and updates would all be funneled through a Facebook Groups section. If I wanted to be part of the in-crowd, I needed to join Facebook.

Until this point, I had avoided all forms of social networking sites. My shtick with this column leans toward exploring the more obscure or peculiar aspects of the Internet, and Facebook – like MySpace or Friendster – was about as mainstream as a “Synchronicity” notebook.

The site was launched in 2004 by Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg as a service limited to other Harvard students. (The site’s name refers to the paper facebooks handed out to incoming students to familiarize them with the community.) In March the company was valued at $3.75 billion.

Perhaps Zuckerberg was a business major.

Anyway, Facebook – blunt instrument that it was – became a necessity. I filled out my profile account, posted a picture and listed my five favorite movies (“The Godfather,” “Shane,” “12 Angry Men,” “Alien” and “Rear Window”).

For the About Me section I wrote, “I have no idea what Facebook is for.”

I soon learned. Dozens of messages began pouring in from people I hadn’t talked to in years … and who I really liked.

I always thought Facebook was designed for interacting with folks you talked to all the time (which is really the function of e-mail), but it became more of a homing beacon for long-lost friends.

What Facebook also accomplished was to take a lot of pressure off the actual reunion. Since many of the people I hadn’t seen in a number of years had already contacted me through the site, I knew what they looked like, where they lived and their status of married and/or with children. I didn’t have to fumble around as much during face-to-face introductions.

(Interesting how the recently divorced gals were particularly active on Facebook leading up to the reunion.)

I have subsequently changed the About Me phrase on my Facebook profile. It now reads, “older and wiser.”