Belated Happy Birthday on Facebook, I Guess
As the nine faithful readers of this blog already know, I’ve long had my issues with the American way of celebrating birthdays. Nevertheless, I’ve persisted. (Birthdays are like genitals: Everybody has them, some people know how to enjoy them, others think they’re a big pain, and still others try to pretend they don’t exist.)
This post is about birthdays on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook and have any friends or relatives, you know the drill. Friends’ and relatives’ birthdays come up, Facebook encourages you to “let them know you’re thinking of them” or “help them have a great day,” and you choose whether or not to follow their advice, using calculations like, “My brother-in-law’s college roommate? He never wishes ME a happy birthday and I hardly know him anyway, so the hell with him,” or “Of course, I have to post something on her wall, what a sweetheart. Besides, she’s my sister.”
If you’re one of those public-profile people with 5,000 Facebook friends, which I definitely am not, that means that, on average, you’re expected to wish a happy Day of Remembrance of Your Emergence Into the World to 13 or 14 people every freaking day of the year. Who needs that? That’s awfully close to billable-hour territory. That’s time you could be doing something useful, like writing, painting, balancing your checkbook, or at least grabbing some sleep.
Now that it’s no longer my birthday month, I’m going to say I’m distanced enough from the event to not expect my friends to take this post personally; that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
I’m not an expert on Facebook algorithms, and thank God for that, but lately I’ve found that more people have been wishing me a “happy belated birthday” than a happy birthday on my actual birthday.
How exactly does one celebrate a “Happy Belated Birthday”? It’s right up there with LinkedIn’s infamous “Happy Work Anniversary” in the pantheon of what-the-hell, non-occasion occasions. Am I supposed to I have a slice of day-old birthday cake (with “Yet Another Day Older” written on it) and relight already blown-out candles?
Then there’s the nagging problem of how to graciously acknowledge Happy Belated Birthday wishes. A simple “thanks” might do, but if you want to be honest it basically comes down to two choices: “Thanks for forgetting my birthday, which really sucks, but at least you felt guilty enough about it to point it out to me and everyone else,” or “Better you shouldn’t have said anything. What’s past is done. Historical amnesia is the way we should all roll.”
This abundance of sheepish belated wishes is no mystery to me. I’m quite sure it has to do with, in keeping with the unofficial Birthday Omertà Rules of Facebook, not posting anything like “It’s my birthday, so worship me for the day” on my wall on the actual day — how embarrassingly desperate do you think I am? — but posting “Thanks for all the birthday wishes” the day after, thus clueing in the unwashed masses while appearing faux-gracious.
Here’s a Facebook hack, then. On the morning of your actual birthday, post “thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday.” You’ll get a lot of “Happy belated birthday, sorry I missed it, hope you had a great day” responses, and best of all, you won’t have to deal with that crap on the actual day after. Result: You end up feeling smug and superior about beating the system and giving the finger to Zuckerberg into the bargain (it helps if you’re a bit of a sociopath, but what’s a bit of sociopathy between friends?). It might not work in the case of close friends and relatives who would know what your real birthday is, but if they’re that close they should forgive you with an abundance of understanding.
I hope all of you had a great birthday.
