To think it’s tedious when adults are precious about their birthday (not big birthdays)

[GotMooMilk]

We have been invited out for a friends birthday (33 or 34- not a ‘big one’) and one friend has asked if her sister visiting from Australia can come out. The response was along the lines of ‘she can if you want if she will be alone otherwise but I’d rather I knew everyone there properly as it’s my birthday’.

Maybe I’m being unfair but when adults are precious about ‘their birthday’ and wanting spoiling from anyone beyond their partner/parents I just find it so tedious. My own birthday I’ll go for dinner with DH or lunch with the family but wouldn’t be offended if something came up on the exact day and we had to celebrate at a later date it’s no big deal. I had a friend who was was really annoyed at me (told me this!) for not ‘making an effort’ and coming out for her birthday despite booking a table for 7 midweek when I don’t finish work til 8 on that day. Aargh!

Tedious and unnecessary. Also "big" birthdays.... why is being 50 more of A Thing than being 49 or 51? Baffling!
Fortunately, I have now trained most people to ignore my birthday - my husband is usually away on a solo holiday 😂

Birthdays are our one 'excuse' for going out just the girls and having a nice meal out! Now I've moved away I miss most of them. They are not a big deal, just seven to ten of us. Bringing an extra would be fine (bringing a husband would not be), but I can understand how someone might not want a stranger there.

My niece (teenager) has the same birthday as my older colleague. I haven't had a day off to celebrate my niece's birthday for a few years as my colleague, we job share, expects me to work for her if her birthday lands on her working day.

It's my birthday tomorrow and I'm going into work. I'm mid 50s and not precious.

'By all means, go out and celebrate if that's what you want, but theres no need to act like it's a wedding. You were born - good for you. So was everyone else. It's not a huge deal :)'

So you found someone to share the rest of your life with? Big deal! So you had sex and got pregnant, and now you're planning a baby shower? No one cares!

You get my point. Why should people only be allowed to celebrate some things and not others? Birthdays are a big deal in this house, and we have no kids. I can understand why she doesn't want people she knows at her birthday dinner

@TroysMammy I'm pretty sure someone's actual birthday trumps your niece's!

I think I just understand that other people like and value different things to me and it doesn’t really affect me. Live and let live and let people do and enjoy whatever makes them happy?
the person with the visiting sister is welcome to say she’s no longer free if the plans don’t suit her.

if the birthday friend is rude about that obviously that’s annoying. But that’s because rudeness is annoying, not because liking to celebrate your birthday how you want is annoying

You mean a woman has more entitlement to a day off even though it's not a day I work and I can't go out for a meal on my teenage niece's actual birthday which is on the same day?

@coxesorangepippin at 80yo, I would probably give him more leeway, just because he might well see that as an opportunity to have family around together. And that it’s an opportunity that might not happen again (or much more).

God, yes. Grown adults expecting others to celebrate nothing birthdays in a big way - party with everyone the weekend before, dinner with close friends/family and then also see them on their actual birthday. Tedious, tedious, tedious

Oh I know!! Same people every year “Hi everyone it’s my birthday weekend coming up so I wanted to book you all in early, I’m thinking this date for Manchester people and this date for London people…blah blah blah”

Birthdays are just commercial like any other celebration, buy a card, buy a present, buy a cake, buy a banner.
Spend money on that special person to show you care, just like Mother's Day, Father's Day. Valentine's Day, xmas and Halloween. It's all about money.
I will have a drink on my birthday and toast someone else's with them but I don't expect or give presents other than from immediate family, I especially hate collections for people I hardly know but apparently work somewhere in the same company.

I know someone who has a birthday week. Honestly it’s so over the top every year.

I'm assuming your friend is single or child free and has made the effort to spend money attending all of your wedding and baby celebration stuff? If so let her have her bday how she wants it. You'd be up in arms if she tried to bring a cousin to your wedding.

Not everyone has a little nuclear family to celebrate with so friends are who they want to be with and they'd be very lonely if they weren't

I completely agree with this.

It always amazes me how grown adults can be so self obsessed.

Oh yes, that does sound tedious. Some people are really really into birthdays though.

Totally tedious. Big eye roll from me.

Birthdays are just commercial like any other celebration, buy a card, buy a present, buy a cake, buy a banner.

@cosynightshome They are if you choose to make them that way.
Birthdays are special to me as an opportunity to celebrate a person who means something to me. Or to celebrate another year on this earth for myself.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I have no opinion on how people celebrate their own birthday but this 'it is my birthday and you have to do whatever or I will have a go at you otherwise' is weird

Or the 'I have organised this massive thing and everyone has to give me thousands or else drama' whether birthday person or other fusspot

I'm with you on this.

The "DH RUINED my BIG Birthday" threads usually read to me like the OP is 50 going on 5, and the type who probably still expects to wake up to a Christmas stocking. It's one day of your entire life ffs. Throwing a toddler tantrum because of some perceived slight or because the actual grown ups won't indulge your self-obsession says it all.

It's all completely arbitrary. The way some fully grown adults carry on is ridiculous. What do people born on 29th February do? because none of them are having a 50th on the actual 50th anniversary of their birth.

I find it tedious when people are mocked, dismissed and accused of being not quite normal for wanting their birthdays to be special.

I spent my childhood being told that it's nothing important, how stupid I'd be to think that anybody would want to get me a present, that I was greedy and self obsessed when it was three weeks after Christmas and nobody liked me anyway.

So now, rather than let my mother's despising of birthday celebrations (and me) fester away inside, I want it to be remembered and marked. Because it fucking hurts when it isn't.

I disagree with this point. Your husband absolutely should be capable of remembering your birthday. The extent of effort or fuss he goes to is going vary obviously but IF it actually matters to the poster then her husband should care enough to at least remember without a reminder. Low bar indeed to accept that level of indifference.

I have family members that REALLY want people to know it’s their birthday every year. Cba.

I have a big birthday this year and I have told DH I really don’t want a fuss! I am never massively bothered for my birthday but this year I’ll have a tiny baby, plus a toddler and preteen. I’d be happy to celebrate my birthday with them, DH, my parents and my DSis and BIL. Just dinner at my parents’ house is fine (we don’t have space at ours). DM started talking about a big party and I quickly shut that down.

Others are different though. If they want to have more of a thing for their birthday, I don’t think that’s wrong. Piling expectations on others to attend is precious though and the disappointment when it doesn’t go exactly to their ‘vision’ makes me eye roll.