Birthday! Y U So Attention Seeker For A Day?
Birthdays. Or Birthdayyyys!! I am only trying to show the excitement levels here. Over the years the day you are born turns into a day you just grow older. It is a yearly phenomenon from a happy sweet 16 to high on life (Life ke majje lena) post 18 and above 23 it is like Life tumhare majje le rahi hai. If you have been smart enough to observe these variations then congratulations you are getting older!
Each year I am advised to become wiser and while I may not really enact it out I do make an effort and execute it. I know it for myself because I am of the belief that I will not do something just because someone told me to. I will do it because I think they are right and it is time I give it a thought.
Last year on my birthday I wanted to be away from family and friends, very discreetly I planned a trip, packed my bags and left. My immediate friends also didn’t know that I am not going to be home for them to come over and wish me at midnight. It was all carefully planned. You could read more about how my birthday away from home went like here.
I think that’s enough of a background to begin how actually this year turned out. From an excitement dynamite that innately resides within me, I had my plans in place. Birthday was on a Monday that did little to dampen my spirits for a fun-filled previous weekend. So the partying, dancing part was taken care of.
On an actual day being a Monday, I had to head to work. So it was not very different from my routine. Same train, same people just fancier earrings. (I didn't have clothes to wear, one girl problem I have!)
The thing about birthdays that I abso-fucking-lutely do not fancy are the phone calls. I mean it is a reminder of people in your contact list who call you once in a year and in their second sentence ask for a party! The fuck? So I picked up calls with a Thank You instead of a Hello. Every alternate conversation went like…
*phone rings*
Me: “Thaaaank Youu so much!!”
Person: "But wait I did not even wish you. What if I don’t wish you?”
Me: “We both know you called me today for this, just cut to the chase…”
Person: (fake laughs at the reality) “So what plans…” (Because you need to continue the conversation)
Me: “Nothing yaar.” (The same old drill)
There's either this or relatives replacing the party stuff with "Hello marriage material, ab Birthday nahi Anniversary manane ke baare me socho." (These aren't the actual words but intent is the same)
We as a generation belong more to the online space than offline souls. So every morning while we rub our eyes to clear visibility we manage to open the Facebook tab and check the notifications. I was surprised to see people having uploaded pictures of me from midnight. I had hidden my birthday and disabled the write on my timeline option. Because again I didn’t want somebody to scramble a HBD!! Have a blast. GBU!! :D on my otherwise clear wall. A lot more time goes in deleting them, you know.
But one post is enough for others to know it is your birthday. This trend of wishing your closest people with a picture on a birthday is special no doubt. Some people put a lot of thought into deciding captions, make you feel all good and write all nice things about you. Being a narcissist person that I am, this could inflate my ego so well.
And soon one after another my notifications were flaring up!! Be it office colleagues or college mates, friends I made this year, everyone had something to say. It felt good to know how good people think of me. But it even popped a question ‘Was I really that good to them?’ While I awaited posts of the obvious ones, the unexpected ones had more things to post. I do not want to boast but there were about 20+ posts (Facebook, Instagram, Instagram stories, WhatsApp stories all included). And others kept reacting, commenting, flaring up my notifications even more. I turned off the notifications on these posts, I stopped checking Facebook, there were messages while I left unread. I could not concentrate on work. It got annoying. Annoying to get the attention. Plus the call drill I explained above.
I left from work, met a few friends on the way, headed straight home and did the best thing ever!! I switched off my phone for about 2-3 hours. I needed no more wishes. I think I was done for the day. I learned few things about myself in this very time...
I dislike being shown so much love and care. I do not like this attention. I am a nice person (generally going by the posts I assume) but I do not want it to be advertised. I appreciate all that was being said, I do not mean to belittle anyone but it got too much. It felt like a celebrity. You being born was the best thing everrrrr. Bro NO! I am glad we met and you feel that way about me. I am happy I have had an impact big or small in your life. But thinking from a third person’s point of view, my photos must have spammed others timelines. Ugh!
I think I was better off last year in no network zone. I definitely missed my closest friends back home who were abusing me for being away. Yes, I missed them but this year I was missing myself more. This might sound depressed but trust me these notifications can get on nerves. Those red popping things are like bullets being fired when they come at a rate of 8-10 every refresh later. Definitely for someone who has never depended on social media value for my actual value. Imagine for someone who casually wanted to scroll on his facebook timeline and found another tagged picture of me. 10 times over!
I am reiterating that I do not want to critic anyone who made an effort to post things about me. I am glad, I think I have made some impact somewhere and will continue to be your 'go-to person/bhai/best-friend and what not. I am grateful to each one of you (barring a few phone calls).
Thank You, guys!
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