Am I unreasonable to feel hurt by friends forgetting my 60th?

[Star1966]

I am with a group of friends who used to work together and have stayed in touch with each other for over 10 years after leaving our work place as we all got along well and meet up for coffee/ lunch regularely.
I thought that we have always supported and celebrated each others milestones and Birthdays etc. as well as being there for each other when needed.
However I have recently started to rethink my place in the group and it is making me feel down and a bit sad.
I recently had my 60 Birthday and was very excited as it is a milestone that I have been looking forward to reaching for a while.
I had many lovely recognitions and celebrations from friends and family, but from my friendship group chat I only got a Happy Birthday, hope that you are having a lovely day.
When I responded with a thank you very much everyone and some pictures from the special treat that I was having together with my family on the day it was quite obvious that it was a extra special celebration...
Two of my friends hsd sent me a ordinary Birthday card and the other two just said Happy Birthday in the group chat which is normal and fine for a ordinary Birthday. On the special ones we normally do a collection for that person and make a bit of a fuss..
It's not a present that I need, but was looking forward to share the recognition of the special day from a group of friends that I considered as being close?...
I thanked the friends that sent me the cards privately and one of them asked if it had been my 60th and I confirmed that it had.
She said that she was looking forward to arranging a get together with everyone soon and wrote in the groupchat for a request of dates to get together soon.
One of the other ladies then suggested meeting up on the date that I know is her Birthday ( but did not mention that it is ) and everyone else corresponded that the day would suit them. I was still feeling a little wounded and was also waiting for the new schedule from work to come out to confirm if I could join in or not, so I waited a little extra to comment on the date and was going to answer this morning.
Then one of the ladies just said a minute ago, great will be good to see you all there...and none of them seem to have noticed that I haven't even commented on if I can make it or not yet...
To be honest if they are planning to celebrate me now when we are due to meet up 3 weeks after my special day I am not really that interested anymore..
I was going to be the bigger person and buy a present and a card for our friend that we are meetimg up on her Birthday and bring it along, but when none of them have even realised that I haven't confirmed if I can make it or not yet, then part of me feel like just not turning on the day now.....
Am I being unreasonable or not for feeling like this?
Last time that I saw them the attention was on.our friend in the group who was going to retire after having worked full time and struggling a bit for a while. So we all gave her little cards and I had a small present for her etc.
That could have been the time when they also remebered me. This other lady might be more remakable than me, but I just thought that we all count in our own special way? I understand that life is busy and we all forget things, but I thought that between the 4 of them one of them.might have remembered..
Am I unreasonably to feel like this or not?

It doesn’t sound like you told them in advance? So they maybe didn’t realise, who usually organises gifts/ outings? Is it specific people or does the birthday person arrange something? The friend that’s organised a get together around her birthday did it herself, had you have suggested a meet up for your 60th them likely they would have made a fuss

Did they actually know it was your 60th? It sounds like they didn't, which to me indicates friends that aren't that close. My best friend is 50 in three years and I've already started talking to mutual friends about what to do for it (just idle chat, nothing firm) but that's because I know she would like a fuss and I also know exactly how old she is. Another friend of mine is always a bit cagey about birthdays. She's 50 next year and I have no idea what to do for it. I could see that one passing without much fuss and I don't know whether that will bother or not.

As I've got older I've found two things - birthdays and bereavements are minefields. People have a lot of feelings around both (different ones of course!) and a wide range of expectations. The general approach seems to be to wait and see what the person does and to go with that. The problem is that a lot of people end up silently seething because others didn't read their mind and give them what they wanted.

One rule of thumb that will definitely make you happier is to ask for what you want. There is a danger people will say no, but you are better off knowing that rather than reading too much into genuine omissions or mistakes.

If you believe these friends are genuine and this was just a misunderstanding, let it go. If you think they genuinely don't care about you, then you need to do something about it.

You are being incredibly precious. You were colleagues 10 years ago.

You were wished a happy birthday and you had a nice day with your family.

They only knew afterwards it was your 60th. And still why would they do anything special, they have their own lives. You made sure they knew it was a 'special' birthday...

Errr... Righto... Happy Birthday, glad you had a nice day. Sorry I didn't book a cruise.

I understand your consternation. It's notvexactly "hurt", is it? It's more like puzzlement and mild shock that others aren't invested in the things that you thought mattered to the group equally; and finding out on a milestone birthday can't have been easy

In similar circumstances I've had pause to think, and to decide to pull back and meet the other peoples' energy. If you're normally the instigator of milestone-birthday whip-arounds I'd stop bothering.

So let me get this straight. You had a lovely day of celebrations with family. Every one of these four friends in the group remembered your birthday —two sent you cards, two said Happy Birthday on WhatsApp. But the cards were wrong because they were ‘ordinary’ birthday cards, not specific 60th birthday cards.

And although one friend asked whether it was your 60th, and when you confirmed it, said you must get together to celebrate and followed it up by posting on the group chat, and you think there may be some celebration of you at your next meet up, this isn’t good enough because (1) it’s three weeks late (2) on someone else’s birthday and (3) they should have done it at your previous meeting which was about celebrating someone’s retirement?

To put it more simply - the friendship group should have remembered her milestone birthday on the day and marked it in way they customarily do for other members of the group.

They didn't.

All other detail is irrelevant.

I understand why he OP is puzzling over this.

I understand why you feel hurt when as a group you do collections for other big birthdays. They may not have initially realised it was your 60th birthday but at least one of them knew at which point she should have told the others so they could have organised something for you then.
I’d have felt hurt as well.

I understand why you'd feel hurt, but perhaps you could have said, 'Let's meet to celebrate my 60th if it means something to you.' Personally, I’m not very enthusiastic about birthdays. In our group, three of us share birthdays around the same time, so every year I get reminded. Not everyone is excited about a birthday, and I might even overlook your birthday since I try to forget my own.

You are being oversensitive. How were they to know that you wanted to mark your 60th as a special occasion if you didn't say or arrange something?

The older I get, the more I downplay my birthday. I don't expect a fuss and a lot of people are the same.

You didn't make it clear that it was your 60th and you didn't steer the group into doing something special. You can't expect them to be mindreaders. Your expectations were unreasonable.

Re the group arranging a date without waiting for you to confirm - isn't that normal these days? WhatsApp flies along at an incredible rate!

I feel very differently to you and can't bear birthdays so this wouldn't be my cup of tea anyway. I also couldn't tell you when any of my friends birthdays are except for my school friend from age 11. I mean I know the general months but we wouldn't do anything to 'celebrate', after uni/20s that's just for family.

But my mum is like you and celebrates things for weeks. But she instigates it and makes the suggestions to people, I don't think she expects them to remember her.

@Star1966 I can see both sides of this.
Being 60 can be an unpleasant reminder of getting older and only a few years ago was the state pension age for women. Unless I knew positively that someone wanted to embrace being 60 I would be treading carefully and also just give a plain birthday card.

Last year my dm was 90, I asked what she wanted to do and she couldn’t believe that I thought it was a special birthday, she just wanted to forget it.

Well if the rest of the group had celebrations organised for them on their big birthdays it was miserable of them not to do it for you.
But you are lucky to have loving family to celebrate with so I would put it behind you and be grateful as that counts for more imo.

I cant believe a lot of these posts.

Life is all about celebrating each other's milestones.

I'd be very hurt to be treated differently from my other friends.

I love birthdays (zero or not) but you do have to be proactive about them if you want a bit of a fuss - they can slip under other people's radar, or your friends might not really be sure if you want birthday attention or not (many people aren't bothered). Suggesting a small get together might have been the thing to try. You're not unreasonable to feel what you feel, but I'd move on from it now and carry on enjoying your friendship group & the good things it offers.