But, not for the usual reasons people hate birthdays. You see, my birthday happens to be St. Patrick’s Day. When you are a little kid growing up, it’s fun. And even when you are a young adult, it’s an interesting fact about yourself. I’ve used it as an ice breaker before.
But, as an adult, it sucks.
I take some responsibility in it sucking, but not a lot. You see, the type of person I am is introverted, but with social tendencies. I am social, but - as in all things in my life - I like to lead from within the masses. I don’t like to be the center of attention, but I do like to lead, and some people look to me as a leader. I’m a leader in a peer sense.
So, about this time every year, people around me start making a big deal about my birthday being St. Patrick’s Day. “What do you want to do for your birthday?” “We’re going to go crazy for your birthday!” When we walk into a bar, they announce that my birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, and suddenly I have complete strangers walking up to me and spilling their beer on me. My birthday is nothing special. It was just a 1 in 365 chance that today happened to be my birthday. About 1 in every 365 people also have today as their birthday.
“Wah!” you might say. “Complaining about getting attention”. Well, what I would really rather happen is have a nice time out, yes, at a bar, but with close friends and family, and just have a nice engaging night. Not this raucous time. And, please don’t use my birthday as an excuse to go party. You see, everyone else is out celebrating my birthday, too. So, it’s special, and yet not special at the same time. Don’t pretend it’s special when it’s not.
This causes all sorts of drama around my birthday. Just last night, my wife and I went out to meet another couple who we are friends with. The girl in the couple kept saying, “It’s your birthday, so we’re going to do whatever you want! What do you want to do?”
“Well I’m having a good time just doing what we’re doing now.” That is never enough for people who ask that question. I suspect that I am expected to jump up and start dancing on the tables. I also suspect that they ask that question because either they want attention, or are using it as an excuse to do something else.
This also pulls attention away from my wife. I like to give my wife as much attention as possible. She is beautiful, smart, funny, witty, and definitely the more gregarious of the two of us. So, another source of drama is that everyone is trying to focus attention on me, and I am constantly trying to redirect that attention to my wife. Figuratively, I’m being hoisted up on people’s shoulders (again, only because of the cosmic random chance of when my birthday landed), but trying desperately to reach down and pull my wife up with me.
This causes drama in that the people trying to hoist me up are irritated that I’m not letting them hoist me up, and then my wife gets irritated because of the whole debacle. And then the night just deflates.
So, the night progressed until the statement came up again. “It’s your birthday! We’re going to do whatever you want to do!”
“Okay. Well, we’ve been here a while. I think it’s time to go home.” I looked at the other guy, and he nodded in agreement. He thought it was time to go, too.
“But, no, it’s your birthday! We’re going to do whatever you want to do!”
So, I guess we’re not actually going to do whatever it is I want to do, after all. I think people use my birthday being St. Patrick’s Day as a way or reason to get what they want, under the guise of my birthday. That’s fine, but don’t paint it as if it’s in honor of me - again just a cosmic chance that my birthday is St. Patrick’s Day.
A couple years ago, when my birthday landed on a Saturday, my wife and I were out with some friends at a bar. I get a text message from one of my other friends.
“Hey, I want to celebrate your birthday. Come meet us at this bar.”
“Sounds good, but we’re already at this other bar. Why don’t you come over here to celebrate with us?”
“Maybe next time. We’re already at this bar.”
Okay. I guess you didn’t really want to celebrate my birthday with me, then.
I did have a really good time last year. My wife made fun of me for being so strict, but I laid down the law. When a friend said the typical, “It’s your birthday, so we are going to do whatever you want to do.” I said, “Good. Here is the itinerary.” And I laid out a route of bars we were going to visit, and approximately how much time we were going to spend at each bar, and even arranged for travel between the bars. I followed it up with a Fight Club-esque type of list of rules.
You know what? I actually had a lot of fun. And so did everyone else.
I guess no one learned their lesson.
What timezone do you live in? In my timezone, St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t happen until March 17.
Don’t take the slit eyes, big teeth, and green face as a dig at the many Chinese here celebrating as if they were Irish.