This has been a ‘milestone’ birthday year for me and my school friends. I’m not into celebrating mine because it coincides with a family tragedy, but I love spoiling my friends and family on theirs.
My friends have thrown parties and despite being a social incompetent, I’ve attended, and spent a small fortune trying to get personal, individual, and special gifts (think €150 approximately) that mark the occasion. I’ve variously gifted my friends jewellery, bouquets of flowers, champagne, days out, spa vouchers.
I don’t have any expectations for the same in return but when one of these friends tells me that they’ve got gifts to give me, I thought it would be something of note. Instead I unwrapped several framed photocopied pictures of a bar we used to frequent in our younger days. I don’t know what to do with these pictures, I don’t want them on my wall.
The biggest disappointment is that it feels like they don’t know me. Their sole point of reference for a gift was something that has zero relevance in my life, and hasn’t been part of my life for a good twenty years or so. That a “thoughtful” gift can be so completely thoughtless.
I’m not a drinker but I feel like a bottle of wine would have been a better gesture. I wasn’t expecting gifts or even for the date to be acknowledged but this has been such a letdown that I feel ungrateful and spoilt.
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