It was an Easter revelation. I had always wondered how it looked when someone recoiled in horror, and there it was before me.
An old wannabe beau seemed to be making a pretty good fist of it, trying to slither away like a snake in the grass.
It was my fault, naturally.
He'd sought me out to have a catch-up at our school reunion and I had tactlessly greeted him with "you were in love with me when I was 12".
I don't think I imagined his step backwards and the tightening grip on his wine glass.
I'd like to think he fortified himself with a couple of quick swigs, but I might be making that up.
"I was in love with all the girls then," was his all-too-hasty reply.
He had clearly forgotten that without any encouragement from me he wrote letters which got me into trouble at boarding school because such correspondence was forbidden.
Was his reaction related to the 1967 photo of me on display featuring a monobrow and teeth I had yet to grow into, or the varicose-veined, faded, squashy-tummied 2009 creature now before him?
I will never know.
Earlier in the day I had delved into old classrooms accompanied by a former pupil who was older than me.
She recalled a host of unpleasant and unfair incidents and vindictive behaviour from teachers.
I was surprised at her bitterness. Not because I questioned her recollection of events, but because she had always seemed happy-go-lucky.
That's history. Everybody has their own version of it.
This weekend we will have the annual bombardment about our country's military history.
The official Government guide to Anzac Day says the Gallipoli campaign, although it was not a military triumph (now there's an understatement), showcased attitudes and attributes such as bravery, tenacity, practicality, ingenuity and loyalty to King and comrades that helped New Zealand define itself as a nation, "even as it fought unquestioningly on the other side of the world in the name of the British Empire".
"After Gallipoli, New Zealand had a greater confidence in its distinct identity and a greater pride in the international contribution it could make," the Government website says.
But what was that contribution in World War 1? Was it truly glorious sending so many men to certain death and maiming many more in a foolish campaign which did not, and I am quoting the official website here, "have any significant influence on the outcome of the war"?
From this distance it is hard to imagine the enthusiasm for that war. As Paul Baker writes in King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War, when war was declared, nearly 15,000 people gathered outside Parliament where cheer after cheer followed the announcement.
Within a week of the declaration some 14,000 men had volunteered, with an average age of 23.
Feelings ran high. Baker reports that one youth, denied permission by his mother to enlist, ran a bayonet through a piano and threatened to shoot her.
Conscription, which came later, is also hard to contemplate in today's terms.
If one of my sons was forced to join a group to go on a killing spree of strangers over some slight, real or imagined, done to someone the group had no real connection with, we would all rightly be appalled. And if he refused to join such stupidity, we would rejoice, wouldn't we?
There was precious little rejoicing about those who refused to go to World War 1. The brutal treatment of some conscientious objectors, particularly men such as Archibald Baxter and Mark Briggs who were among a group sent to the trenches in an attempt to break their resolve, is a sorry part of our military history which deserves more attention.
Reverent news reports of the forthcoming Anzac Day are likely to refer to the turnout of young people at Gallipoli and other moving ceremonies up and down the country.
Some commentators, swept along with the emotion of it all, are likely to use phrases such as "coming of age" and draw conclusions about what such attendances mean for the nation's identity.
Such conclusions seem unwise. Just as I had no way of knowing how my old classmate remembered me, we don't really know what it is that prompts attendance.
Are young people honouring their families' loved ones, attending because its fashionable and they don't want to be different, going along because they abhor war or glorify it, or are they wanting to be part of something they don't really understand?
Whatever their reasons, I would like to hope that as they stand there they take a moment or two to dwell on the dangers of going along with anything unquestioningly and wonder if it is the New Zealand way.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
