Happy Birthday.
I admit that it's not a difficult thing to
say. Heck, typing it doesn't take much
effort, either. And you can pretty much
program an app or two (or seven probably) to wish your friends a good one on
their special day. So why then did I
abandon the practice of wishing my friends a happy birthday on Facebook?
Well, that's a good question. The answer is just a little complicated, but
not really so.
First, it's not for lack of noticing. It's fairly impossible to be part of a social
networking environment and not see that someone's special day is
happening. Either the system tells you
its their birthday, you see someone (possibly the birthday boy/girl in
question) mentioning it themselves, or some combination of the two. So it's never as simple as "I didn't
know".
And as anti-social as I can be at times, I am not
opposed to giving people greetings. People
that know me know that I will, at times, go above and beyond to send heartfelt
sentiments their way. And therein lies
the problem.
See, way back when, I really liked wishing people
a happy birthday. It was fun for me to
come up with some little wish or comment to put onto their wall. But I'm a prideful person. It’s important to me that I actually exert
the effort to be sincere and heartfelt.
I want each person I give a greeting to feel like it was something
unique and personal to them.
And honestly, I just haven’t had the time. It worked just fine when my friends list was
just over a hundred. But now that it’s
several times that number, I see that it’s someone’s birthday almost every
day. Sometimes multiple people. And I’m not online 24/7 (and have no desire
to be), so all it would take is a lapse or two and I’d have forgotten someone.
I’ve thought about alternate solutions to the
problem. I considered only sending well
wishes to people I was pretty close to, but I didn’t want to have to go through
the grueling process of evaluating my friends to see who would be “worthy” of
my time versus who wouldn’t. Likewise, I
didn’t want anyone to feel slighted just because I didn’t get around to them
while I was mulling over whether I would get around to them.
So I took the rather draconian approach of not
sending birthday wishes to anyone. Save my
girlfriend Danielle, which we can all agree is a wonderfully appropriate and
loving thing to do. I’d rather just
spare myself the drama, even if it comes at the expense of doing something I
genuinely used to love.
So if your birthday happens to roll around, and
in sorting through your messages you find mine absent, please: don’t think too
much ill of it. I’m honestly happy that
you’re a year older. I just didn’t get
around to saying it, is all. Which,
believe me, is sadder for me than it is for you.
