Ben Tshin

It’s my champagne birthday. Or it was. It’s over now anyway. So if you forgot, I’m not talking to you… until next year!

Strange thing is that everyone is using Facebook these days to remind themselves of birthdays. So there was a debate about whether to show or hide birthdays. It’s shown by default. But then I thought: “I hate it (or is word too strong??) when people only remember your birthday because some social networking tool (i.e.: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster) reminds them. If they were real friends, they’d remember!” So I hid it. For all of two days. Although Facebook is as superficial as it is, it’s always good feeling when people wish you a happy birthday. Would I rather have random people wishing me a happy birthday or random people wishing me a crappy birthday? The answer is obviously “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”.

Going back to remembering birthdays: I always forget. The only way I used to remember was because Outlook would flash a reminder at 11:45pm the night before. But now I stopped using Outlook simply because gMail and Google are so awesome! So no reminders. I could import all my Outlook birthdays into gCalendar, but it’s too much work since Google doesn’t handle Outlook .pst databases. That’s right. I might be unemployed, but somethings are still too much work.

I didn’t feel bad when Jeff forgot. We had lunch with Rebecca (who I guess also forgot), played squash (I can’t believe I lost that third game), hung around his place. And in the usual Wong manner, he asked if I was staying for dinner. “Nope, I’ve got dinner in Richmond Hill.” “Oh, what for?” “My birthday…” “OH? Right, it’s the 26th today.”

So here are the four ways to forget your friend’s birthday:

1. You get the day/month wrong: “Your birthday is today? I thought it’s the 28th!” (Or “I thought it’s October!” This doesn’t apply if you get both day and month wrong. Then that’s blatantly wrong.)
2. You get it mixed up with someone else: “Your birthday is today? Wait, then who’s October 26th?” (This is worse than #1 because that means two birthdays were missed.)
3. You know their correct birth date, but you don’t know today’s date: “Wait, is today the 26th?”
4. You never knew in the first place:
   • You never bothered to find out.
   • You don’t know the person THAT well. (Here’s where Facebook helps too much.)

So next time you forget, find out which way forgot. If it’s #1, #2 or #3, you probably looked stupid on your friend’s “happy day”. But don’t worry: Hopefully someone else already wished a “happy birthday” so chances are they won’t get cranky on you.

Jeff forgot through #3. Unfortunately I forgot his in September because of #2 and #3. Now that’s just inexcusable. So I take back my isolationist threat: you’re all forgiven. But only for this year.