Facebook Birthday

In my recent post, I mentioned my upcoming birthday.

A couple months ago, I made the decision to take my birthday off Facebook for a variety of reasons. I probably don't need to tell you what having a Facebook birthday implies, but:

Suddenly, at midnight, hundreds of your acquaintances who would not have otherwise known, are alerted that it is officially your birthday. For the next 24 hours, generic "happy birthday!" posts are splattered over your wall and you are burdened with the task of "liking" all of them, commenting on all of them, or, if you're lazy, making a status saying, "Thanks for all the birthday wishes!" The end.

Not for me. Frankly, I'd rather have a few birthday cards from the people that care enough about me to remember my birthday without assistance than to have hundreds of lame, almost thoughtless virtual greetings.

So I took it off. It's not your business to know my birthday anyway if you don't know me well enough that it never came up. It's personal, like, you don't publish your phone number on Facebook, do you? No, you let someone ask for it (I'm hoping).

I'm curious what will happen this year. I'm guessing someone will remember and write something on my wall, which other people will see and follow suit. But I still think it will be significantly fewer people. Not that this is a social experiment.

I'm not out to pity myself by any means, but I am curious to see who knows my birthday when they aren't conveniently told.

I may or may not let you all know how it went. I'm not doing this because I hate birthdays (quite the contrary), nor because I want to keep my birthday a secret. I'm doing this because I care about intimacy.


God bless.