Why is it that I just hate to get these little reminders from Facebook, Plaxo and others that someone I know has a birthday coming up in seven days? For one thing, it makes me spend time debating whether this person is, indeed, a good enough friend to warrant my sending birthday greetings. And when I do send them, I feel they've been devalued somehow by the prompting from an on-line resource like Facebook.
I know that when it's my birthday and I get on-line greetings from people I don't know well--and even some I do but suspect they wouldn't have thought of sending me a note if Facebook hadn't reminded them--it feels inauthentic, cheap, superficial.
There's my real birthday, and then there's the on-line birthday experience which consists of a two liner greetings from people that don't care all that much but feel compelled to drop a note.
Even worse, when I find myself responding with something lame like "Thank you for remembering my birthday," that feels inauthentic too. Because they didn't remember...they were reminded by Plaxo or Facebook or some other on-line scold.
I guess there is no going back. We know that all of us get the same reminders. So when birthdays roll around we've all been reduced to the kind of inauthentic greetings exchange that we forced our kids into when they hardly knew their Aunt Rose but we insisted that they sign the card for her on her big day...as if they cared.
Whatever happened to the little birthday books, the lists we kept of people we care a lot about, whose birthdays are important to us? Now, the reminding about their birthdays is done for us. We don't have to bother with remembering because our on-line resource does it for us. This feels like manufactured, phony, affection to me and I don't like it. Like the local restaurant that keeps tab of our birthday and sends a reminder that we can get a free slice if we show up on our big day. They could care less about me or my birthday. They just want to sell the soda that will accompany the slice.
Well, Aunt Rose, Happy Birthday anyway. I know you're surprised that I remembered...
Author of I is for Intercourse: The ABC's of Conversation, Susan Bird is the visionary behind Wf360, and a sought-after speaker around the world for her views on leadership, the strategic importance of conversation, entrepreneurship, and the role of women business leaders.
This feels like manufactured, phony, affection to me and I don't like it.
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