So it was my birthday yesterday… had a big party planned for two weeks… a “big” party to me is 15-20 people (being a parent makes you “uncool” and its amazing how many friends you lose but thats another bitch.)… i send out a reminder two days ago.. and ONE… ONE!!!! friend showed up… thanks a lot friends for making my birthday party the shittiest party ever… ended up just sitting on the couch.. getting hammered.. watching the hockey game, falling asleep before it was over…. WTF am i going to do with two cakes now?
—The Loner…
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2009.
Yeah, my birthday celebrations pretty much went right to family-based events when I had my first baby. I don’t bother anymore. But, um, no offense, right, why did you throw yourself a party? I always had others do it for me, and when they didn’t…I just chilled with my family.
But happy birthday!
Yeah, next time tell your friends your birthday’s coming up and if they want an excuse to get hammered then they better plan it and invite a bunch of people. Also, then you get the party…
Or get better yet, get different friends…
The same thing happened to me when I threw a housewarming party last February. I wasn’t even going to throw a party, but all my “friends” demanded one and said they wanted to buy me housewarming gifts. So I threw a party and spent over 200 dollars on food and alcohol and 2 people showed up. One ate some food and said she had other plans and left, and the other left because it was awkward.
Sigh, I went through this in high school. You can’t really count on anybody except yourself (from a movie, I forget which one) but try to make the most out of your situation. Being independent makes this burden a lot less heavy to bear. Take up a hobby and try to make lasting relationships from that. My advice is, don’t make friendships on peat moss foundations. Don’t call someone your true friend until you know that they’ll be there for you always.
I blame this on Facebook. Everybody has 40 invitations on any given weekend from a shitload of people they don’t know, and they disperse all over the country side to a bunch of lame parties with strangers, then end up downtown.
Or they might just not like you.
Well, maybe it’s just me, but I stopped having birthday celebrations with friends – with the exception of my 40th when I was actually in town – somewhere around junior high. I thought everybody did…after your teens you celebrate birthdays with family. I am reasonably popular, and not in my past 3 decades can I even recall adults inviting friends to their birthday parties. Except for maybe really close friends for significant birthdays.
Of course, I might be old-fashioned. I still remember when to be asked to be a godparent was a serious thing, not the meaningless label it is nowadays. So maybe things have changed with birthdays too.
That being said, I can’t see even parenthood or a “birthday party” label keeping away all but one person out of 15 or 20. Something else going on there.
Maybe next year you should send out fancy handwritten invitations and ask for RSVP’s from this years no-shows, and if enough of your so called friends promise to attend you should go away but have a CCTV to record the looks of disappointment on their smug faces.
Yeah, facebook can be terrible for events, you get 50 people saying “maybe” they’ll attend, and you think, some of those people will come, but none of them ever do, so I don’t know why they always say maybe.
This is why I don’t celebrate my own birthday. But I will usually make a point to come out and party for other people’s b-days if invited. It’s fucking amazing how many people will say they will come (to the birthday thing) for sure but never show! There have been a couple of my co-workers who invited several people from work to come out for their birthdays, including me, AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY KEPT MY PROMISE AND SHOWED UP!
people still throw themselves bday parties??
I was wondering the same thing, buggies.
Personally I take any excuse to throw a party, and birthdays are one of the most obvious.
I don’t really do the B-Day thing either, but I can feel where the OP is coming from. Not being from here and having more of a party lifestyle pre parenthood, I lost a lot of my friends/acquaintances once I became a parent. Rawr: The OP throwing a party for herself might have been the only way to “do” something for her B-day, being lonely within the (assuming) single parent lifestyle can sometimes cause one to go freakin nuts.
Op, I would take on Dino’s advice. Don’t rely on other’s to do shit. I’m a loner and will admit it. I’m also someone who will go stir crazy if I don’t get out and do things. So if I want to go away for a weekend of hiking when the young one is away with her dad, I do it myself. If I want to go out for a night of drinking, I rely on the few close friends I have, and make plans with them.
Rule of thumb for facebook events:
Will attend = maybe
Maybe will attend = won’t attend
Won’t attend = just plain hates you.
op here.
The thing is… those 15-20 people are people i see regularly, those people said weeks ago “oh yes we have to have a party, you havent had anything for your birthday in YEARS, it will be SO much fun, well have the hockey game on here blah blah blah blah…”
i never ever held anything for my birthday, but when friends insist you do, you do!….
was talking to a friend who was sopossed to come.. seems she HAD to go to bingo with her nanny… nanny musta had a gun to her head.. she had no other choice…
Im not a single mom FA. i have a great husband… just really bad/not caring friends i guess….
just have to accept the fact i guess and get on with my boring life!
Next time plan a party, but find a friend who hates social awkwardness, and tell her you’re having the party at her house. Then she’s enforce that tons of people come, because it’s basically her party then.
how old are you OP? you could do what the young kids do and buy yourself a dollar-store tiara, a cupcake looking birthday thing and taken pictures of yourself and husband for facebook.
i do not understand what it is with HRM and the locals’ “need” to have a big birthday every year. should be renamed “happy-birthday-to-me-fax”
Nobody showed up because you tried to throw yourself a pity party on the same night as game 7 of the Stanly Cup finals – not that you would have known that when you picked the date, it’s just unfortunate. My guess is your friends didn’t want to miss the game.
“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to”
Ah, shit deal.
I’ll come to your next birthday party! And man, I wish I had two cakes. I’m envious.
nevermind, i made sure the game was on in HD on my 46” TV… and they all knew it….
Im over it now though.. Ill just remember it when im invited out to something of theirs…
Well, bad timing with the whole hockey game crappy-crap, but with a little better planning, and some extreme persistance, you could’ve pulled this one out of the gutter. I celebrate my birthday EVERY year, and it’s very close to Halloween, so it’s a challenge to lure people out. I also plan things well in advance, remind people OFTEN (cuz people are dumb, they forget important things like birthdays), and make sure we’re doing something that my friends would find fun. I harrassed my buds incessantly this past year, everybody showed up, and it was one of the best, most fun birthday I’ve had in 20 years!
But you could’ve also hired a babysitter, rented a hotel room and got your freak on with the hubby until the wee hours! To hell with the loser friends!
Happy Belated Birthday!