birthdays

while i have reached the age which you can round off to 30, we have reached the age where we complacently rely on social media to remind us on the birthdays of our friends (or "friends"). this year i decided to hide my birthday on facebook so as not to get flooded on my wall, but a side effect was that as of now, 11 hours into my birthday, only one contact had posted on my wall (and that was because he lives in korea and got the birthday notification one hour ahead, before i had turned it off).

i did not do it to test if people remember my birthday - that's why i called it a side effect. but it's still a disappointing side effect. nevertheless, there are people who remember it, with or without the help of facebook (because facebook gives reminders a few days ahead as well), who wrote to me outside of the facebook wall.

i do not think it means that the majority of people do not care; i do not think that people who rely on facebook reminders to remember birthdays are less sincere. that is something external to me - it pertains to the well-wisher, so while i do not think he is less sincere, i am not entirely sure. but internally, to me, something is just lost when i realise some people post only once a year on my wall - on my birthday - because facebook reminded them that it is my birthday. it becomes less meaningful, more efficient.

but i like the idea of a quieter birthday anyway. maybe it's to do with age. maybe at some point you don't get that rara about birthdays anymore. to those who have written to me out of the facebook wall, i am happy, and grateful. i do keep a manual birthday calender where i jot down birthdays, and i look at it every first of the month to see the upcoming ones. i shall aim to write to those people outside of a social media platform when the time comes.

spellcheck is even telling me to change 'facebook' into 'Facebook' now.