Friday, May 7, 2010

Just Another Day...

I have a facebook page. While a lot of the changes that Facebook has made serve to annoy me to no end, I do think they got some things right. Reminding you of upcoming events - is like making your social calendar for you. I think it's great that they let you know when people's birthdays are. Some people just suck at remembering important events like that.

I'm not one of those people. If we're good friends, I know when your birthday is. I don't need Facebook to tell me. I expect the same. I'm only talking about the people who you're close with, who you would supposedly do anything for. Really - how about remembering their birthday?

When it comes to other people, I stress what a big deal a birthday is. So many people die young of several causes, that it is a celebration when any of us makes it another year on this planet. It's one day out of the whole year where people should go out of their way to be nice to you at the very least. Every once in a while, I'll put a "happy birthday" post on someone's wall. For the most part, I just text them. However, my birthday won't be showing up in your news feed. Why? Because I despise fakeness. It makes my skin crawl. Granted - not every person that would say something to me would be being fake. Some people just genuinely want to help make your day, and I can appreciate that. But I hate having a wall full of comments from people who never speak to me, never comment anything I post, and who I honestly forgot existed. It's annoying and I don't need it. I'll take the few, genuine, heartfelt comments from people who know me enough to know when my bday is.

I used to treat my birthday like a big deal too. That is, until I realized I was the ONLY one who thought it was a big deal. I'm an excellent party planner - and I planned great, elaborate parties designed to accomodate every single person invited. Yet every year - I was disappointed by people who didn't show and seemingly didn't care. So I decided that if it wasn't a big deal to anyone else, I should stop trying to force it to be one. I figured that by narrowing the pool of people I choose to celebrate with, it would also narrow the possibility of being disappointed by people. I did this - knowing full well that I should've known better. But I took a chance, as I often do.

I can't say that I'm going to give up on celebrating my birthday. There are definitely a few people who are faithfully always there for me, no matter what. I recognize that and I appreciate it - and I don't forget it when they need something from me. But I think the way to go is celebrating in small ways just for myself. Because it's a serious blow to your self esteem when you think you're a great friend, you're always at every one else's party and yet when it's your turn - nobody cares. I did spend a shit ton of money this week on make-up and clothes for my mini celebration ~ perhaps that is the tradition I will keep going.

No comments:

Post a Comment