Many find that this is a very useful tool- it's similar to writing it yourself on a calendar, but really, who does that nowadays? It is almost like saying you maintain a correspondence with a person by writing and sending letters.
A person told me that fb birthday messages are really superficial; they contain no personal or genuine thought from the sender.
Having almost experienced my entire birthday this year, I'd like to refute that statement to a major extent.
Yeah, so certain people need to be reminded that it's your birthday today. So what? It's not as if there aren't any forgetful people in the world, and realistically, you'll only ever remember a select number of birthdays no matter how many people you are close to anyways. Posting a celebratory birthday message is an entirely different matter to simply knowing it is a person's birthday. Nobody said you had to post if you know about it, and this is exactly what I've been getting at.
Wow, so you're actually that kind of superficial, shallow person who cares about how many people send you celebratory messages on your birthday?
Well, to a certain extent, I am that shallow. I don't care if my acquaintances don't really send along a celebratory message- after all, that's why they're acquaintances. However, I am 'shallow' enough a person to have hoped that at least the people who I consider at least a little bit close to, to have written something. Anything is better than nothing.
But that's ridiculous, I mean, can't they wish you "Happy birthday" privately or something? Why do you want that publicity?
Honestly speaking, I cannot deny that I'll feel a little uncomfortable being wished a "Happy birthday" through private messaging rather than public (given that reasonably, this isn't really something that needs to be privately discussed or mentioned).
A major factor that also goes into this is the type of person who is sending me the message. There are people who like doing things privately and aren't as bold or outgoing with their actions. That's completely understandable, and so, I am completely, utterly appreciative that they've spent some time to send along celebratory messages privately.
I will feel uncomfortable if you're the type who is not like that (or even enjoys the publicity of celebratory fb wall messages) and yet, by some reason, decide that you'll privately message me instead? What made you think that I am a person who likes to keep everything private? Do I give off that kind of feeling? How should I express that in fact, I am that shallow when it comes to close friends publicly acknowledging my birthday? If you want something to be done for you, why do you not do the same for others? There has eve been some occasions when in fact, they do it for others, but I suddenly become this rare exception. Is it because I'm some kind of embarrassment; and that you'd rather not associate yourself with me by sending a birthday message?
I don't expect much-- you don't really have to write anything long or emotional. Close friends will undoubtedly write longer messages because...why else would you be considered a close friend? Even then, I still don't really expect much or 'require' much to be appreciative- I mean, come on, not everyone just has all this time to do nothing but sit in front of a computer composing long birthday messages. Not even me.
But regardless, acknowledgment. I'm shallow and insecure about a lot of things about myself (if not everything haha), and so I place a huge significance over acknowledgment that is done genuinely rather than out of obligation. A lack of acknowledgment, for me, results in a whole lot of negative self-reflection:
Obviously, I didn't try hard enough to make close friends.
My close friends aren't really my close friends. Why am I like this?
None of this I blame on other people: I mean, come on, who comes up with this negative self-reflection? Me. So nobody should ever feel accountable. I could've easily made a much more mature evaluation that would not lead to this negative self-reflection.
It's immature and silly; there are other things I should worry about, and given that I'm already this old, it's really just ridiculous for a person like me to keep on acting like a child. A small part of myself wants to indignantly reply that this is not an over-reaction; it's not as though I'm asking for everyone's acknowledgment, and it's not as though I'm even asking for anything but a digital message that will eventually be buried amongst future life updates.
But at the same time, you don't see a mature person pondering over this for a major part of their birthday.
That being said, to not leave this is on an extremely bitter note that I seem to leave most posts nowadays, I was very grateful to have caught up with 2 people in the recent days (let's dub them as "H" and "R"). The fact that both of them remembered my birthday was something that I was really pleasantly surprised by. It made me really happy. Contrary to my often long-held belief, there were people who cared about the actual me apart from my own family, and did not know "me" simply as that "cold-hearted although efficient person who studies like mad and is therefore what they call smart".
I really hope that I can treasure the friendship I have with them for as long as humanly possible. I'm can honestly say from the bottom of my heart, that I am grateful to have met them. They may not know it, but both have really helped me in a lot of ways. And so for that, thank you. Thank you so, so much.