An object lesson: Lies of omission are just as bad as lies of commission

^{Yesterday it was my birthday,
Hung one more year on the line.
I should be depressed,
My life's a mess,
But I'm havin' a good time
—Paul Simon, "Have a Good Time}

My birthday was this week—I turned 24 on the 23rd. All things told, it was pretty underwhelming, which, you know, not surprising considering that it was on a Wednesday and I'm not a crazy party girl. However, it was a good birthday in one way: about half my friends forgot.

As I get older, I'm getting more compulsive about not making a big deal out of my birthday, this post notwithstanding. Once you get to a certain age, it's just not...seemly to tell everyone and their dog that your special day is coming up, and, by implication, that you expect some sort of fawning attention slash expensive gift. You can tell your significant other, because if he forgets you have to stab him, and then you have to find another SO and that's a hell of a birthday present. And you can tell your parents, because they pretty much think you're still eight and this adulthood thing is just a phase, so why not.

So I didn't tell my friends that my birthday was approaching, and of course, several of them totally spaced it. I talked with or IMed many of the that day, too, not that that's unusual or I was fishing or anything, but they didn't mention it. And since, as previously stated, I didn't want to remind them, I was put in the very strange position of having to hide the fact that it was my birthday. "We're all going out to lunch today. Um, no reason. Also, it's cake day, yay! Oh, and I have to tell you about this new game Mary gave me...um, because she's nice? Yeah." It actually really constrained my topics of conversation for the next few days, because I didn't want to deal with the I-forgot-your-birthday fallout, which is a lot of apologizing and I'm-so-sorrying, which, you know, nice, but not if you fish for it. That's cheating. But every time I talked around it, I had to giggle a little. Isn't your birthday kind of a stupid thing to hide? It's the one day of the year when you're supposed to be the center of attention, and everybody expects a little self-centeredness, so it would have been pretty easy to just say, "Yeah, we're going to lunch for my birthday...yeah, it's today. Mmhm. Oh, don't worry about it."

I didn't, though, because be honest. You want your friends to remember on their own—it's kind of pathetic if you have to remind them. I don't want pity presents, here, people. Besides, there are a lot of advantages to not reminding them. For example, when you remember their birthdays year after year, you can feel superior and count it as a karma bonus. And if they ever do figure it out, it's a guilt card you can play forever. "Oh, so what I'm half an hour late. It's not like I forgot your birthday." Really, I'd almost prefer that they forget, because there's nothing I enjoy more than the stupid funny situations I get myself into, and hiding my brithday from my friends has been cracking me up since Wednesday.