The Companion 003: Birthday blues
How much pressure should you put onto your friends on your birthday?
All of my friends are born in May. Yes correct, I have no friends born in any other month, and if you are a friend who is reading this and thinking, I’m not born in May, well, you are wrong, you are also born in May. I have been celebrating birthdays all month and it shows absolutely no sign of abating.
If there is an arena of friendship that is well known and documented within culture, it is the birthday. How many films and TV shows have you watched where friends throw an (unsuccessful) surprise party? Or where the protagonist, as in 13 Going on 30, is let down by their so-called friends on their birthday? (“It’s too bad we can’t make it. Because we really wanted to, didn’t we, girls?”).
In your own life, how many friends’ birthday parties have you joyfully attended? How many cakes have you baked? Or presents have you bought out of obligation?
Birthdays lay the state of our friendships bare, for better or for worse. While I’m hesitant to put any more pressure on them than necessary, especially as basically all of my friends turn 30 this year, I’m curious as to whether birthdays can become arenas for radical celebrations of friendship. Whether they already are? And if so, what makes those celebrations authentic or not?
My generation, and certainly my ragtag mates, are not getting married in droves. In 2019, the Office for National Statistics reported that those who were married by 30 were in the minority (and quite shockingly that back in the mid-1970s, over a quarter of women were married by age 20!) In the absence of these preordained festivities, I think it makes sense for us to seek other ways to come together, to celebrate age-related milestones and turning points in our lives.
“Did I give you the best birthday? I did it, right? I gave you the best birthday! I did that! I DID THAT FOR YOU! Right? I did, right?” — Lane Moore, You Will Find Your People
This week I’ve been reading American comedian and writer Lane Moore’s new book, You Will Find Your People. It’s blurbed as a “narrative work of self-development that uncovers the complex, frightening, and mystical world of friendship”, and that aims to help the reader build and maintain close friendships in adulthood.
Like myself, Lane puts much stock in the birthday celebration, writing firstly about a time when she was hugely let down by a friend on her birthday. The friend claimed she wanted to give Lane the “best birthday ever”, and proceeded to take her out to a bar that only served fried chicken, even though she doesn’t drink, nor eat meat. The friend got drunk and spent most of the night talking about herself.
To add insult to injury, as Lane recounts, the friend then said to her: “I wanted to give you the best birthday—did I do it? Did I give you the best birthday? I did it, right? I gave you the best birthday! I did that! I DID THAT FOR YOU! Right? I did, right?”
There is a redemption arc: later, another friend made her “feel loved and supported and special” on her birthday, creating for her “an active celebration, a celebration that I was born and that she got to know me”. No guesses here as to which of them Lane remained friends with.
It’s funny though, reading these stories back-to-back, because I have to admit to a slight discomfort. It can feel self-indulgent to have expectations from your friends around your birthday because societally, there isn’t a huge amount codified, other than that you should try and show up. And even then, I know that I would be pretty bemused and uncomfortable if a friend fell out with me or became angry with me if I couldn’t make their birthday. I try not to view it as an indictment when friends can’t make mine.
Part of the reason why I’ve been thinking about all of this is that I’m in the very early stages of planning my 30th. Having had some wonderful, loving but slightly muted celebrations in years past due to Covid, this year I want to do something big, flashy and dancey. I want everyone I love to be there. And I am absolutely terrified that no one is going to show up and I will have hired a huge venue that will echo, and no one will dance, and everyone will have a shit time, and no one loves me etc. etc.
In my sane brain, I know that if this were to happen, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The people that I really like and love will probably show up, and we’d have fun. It’s the wider, gorgeous acquaintances who I am not super close to but very much enjoy their company that might be missing.
Still, my fear is that I haven’t been a good enough friend to my own friends and acquaintances on their birthdays to deserve a celebration of this kind. That I haven’t made enough effort, stayed for the whole night, bought the right kind of thoughtful presents, or remembered the correct date (this is so much harder without Facebook!).
At the close of her book, Lane writes that she wants “a surprise fucking birthday party thrown by my friends that I didn’t have to do anything to organize […] I want to walk through that door and step into a world where I am known, where I am seen, where I am celebrated.” Like me, she is drawn to the big, the bold, the irrefutable evidence that we are loved and cared for en masse. A recreation of a world where our existence isn’t allowed to dissolve into existentialism.
“The way we show up for our friends has to bend and shift, but most often it simply needs to be verbalised and visualised. I care about you. I see you. And I want you to see me”
But realistically, I think that one way to start reframing birthdays into radical celebrations of friendship, is quite honestly, to stop viewing them as individualistic. To ask yourself: what is the most unselfish way I can celebrate our joint relationship on their birthday? Friendships are, after all, the patterning and coming together of two different people who have found community in each other.
Sometimes that might look like going out out, showing up to the big party, because that’s one of the ways in which you coalesce. Other times it might mean a long, scheduled phone call. Or, when at a birthday party, speaking to the loneliest person in the room, as it takes the pressure off your friend to host. It’s not about making yourself uncomfortable for the sake of pleasing a friend, but it is about saying I care about you. I see you. And I want you to see me.
The way we show up for our friends has to bend and shift with capacities, time, closeness and distance, but most often it simply needs to be verbalised and visualised in a way that authentically represents how you have and will continue to interact with each other as part of the friendship.
I believe that we can hold and balance the scales of our friends’ wants and needs with our own. And I believe that going out of your way to make an extra bit of effort on a friend’s birthday for the sake of the wholeness of your relationship, can be a significant step in centralising friendships in our lives.
Do you have a question about one of your friendships that you’d like some advice on? Fill out the form here and I might answer it with the help of an expert!
As a broke college student, I find lack of money encourages the most creative, thoughtful gifts. For my friend’s birthday, I decided to get a lot of his friends from all over the world to film a message of themselves wishing happy birthday. Bringing all his friends together in one context was something he never imagined possible, and that was much more meaningful than any gift I could buy.
Ok, so I threw a 30th Eurovision party last night with a similar hope to you. I invited about 120 people and 50/60 turned up. There were some good reasons (train strikes) and some rather lame excuses offered, but in the end, the people who loved me most were there and that’s what matters.
I think what’s frustrating about events these days, though, is that increasing noncommittal that social media facilitates. I had several people say there were attending on my paperless post invite and then just not show up and didn’t let me know in advance. I think that’s pretty poor behaviour - and I think it’s less to do with ‘how close’ they are to you and more to do with the transient way we primarily interact with each other these days. .
I guess I’m a little sad that more people didn’t come because ultimately I didn’t really feel that I was throwing a party for me. I wanted, post-covid, to give people an evening that was just really fun!
Life is too short to get hung up on these things but I will definitely be way more mindful about RSVPing and following through on that RSVP in the future.
🌸🌸🌸