Birthday Wishes

Almost any given day, I can open up Facebook and see that it’s someone’s birthday. Facebook so helpfully encourages me to write a message on their wall. I rarely do.

For one, Facebook walls are kind of old-school. It’s so public, and I think most people just lurk on Facebook (and most social media) nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I still love getting a nice wall message on my birthday, but for the past several years, the only people who actually use my wall are people from the curling club. And they’re from an older generation (no shade, just facts), whereas people closer to my age who have birthday wishes to send do it via a text or a private message on some other platform. I think it’s interesting how behaviour on platforms has evolved so much over the last few years.

The other reason I rarely send birthday wishes on someone’s wall has nothing to do with Facebook or walls. It has everything to do with the fact that I’m not actually close with most of my Facebook friends. This is probably the norm for most people. We collect friends over the year, but are they even friends? Were they ever friends? I have some people on Facebook who I simply did a school project with way back when. I have old elementary school relations who I haven’t spoken to in a decade.

Have you ever heard of Dunbar’s number? It’s a theory by anthropologist Robin Dunbar who believes that humans have a few levels of relationships, with the maximum being 150 social connections that your brain can handle. The smallest number of social connections is 5, which are the core people closest to you. The next level consists of 15 people (including that core 5) who you engage with fairly regularly. Then there’s a level of 50 people that you know somewhat well but don’t keep up with that closely. And then lastly, there’s Dunbar’s number of 150, which I already explained.

Do I think that the 150 number is hard and fast? No. But I do believe there are levels to our relationships, and I think that is the clearest for me when it comes to birthday wishes.

There are probably about 15-20 people I wish happy birthdays to (but I admit to forgetting once or twice…). These are the people who I talk to regularly at curling or over video calls or in real life. These are the people who care about me and show a desire to maintain a relationship with me (and I with them). Everyone else is just people who don’t really know me and certainly don’t care if I post on their wall or not. And that’s fine. It works both ways.

I know I have some weird hangups when it comes to friendships. After years of being the odd man out in groups or struggling to maintain friendships once we’re not in the same vicinity, I find myself with a small circle and a value for genuineness.

And that’s why I see birthday wishes as a mark of friendship in some ways. Someone going out of their way to say something nice, even if Facebook reminded them of the day. I had a friend in university who I thought I was fairly close with, even attending their birthday party. I don’t think I ever received a happy birthday from them, so it does not surprise me that we don’t talk now, years after graduation.

That being said, a happy birthday message isn’t the be-all end-all. While it can be a marker of friendship, it can also be a marker of a lack of one. If we don’t talk except to wish each other a happy birthday once a year, it’s clear that there’s nothing there, and I’d rather we just didn’t do that.

My birthday was months ago, so I really don’t know why I’m thinking about this now. Birthdays and aging is already such a weird thing, so I know it’s perhaps unfair to add a whole other layer of complexity into the mix, but here I am. I acknowledge that I’m weird about this, but I’d like to hear what you think. Do you care if friends don’t wish you a happy birthday? Do you pass on well-wishes to every Facebook friend you have?

RIP Matthew Perry

That’s all for now!

 

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