As someone born in the first week of January, I’ve often found it extremely difficult to rally people together for a birthday celebration.
I usually celebrate later in the month instead when everyone’s back from holidays and recovered from their Christmas food coma, or opt for something low-key so not to clash with the back end of the festive season.
Well – one woman in the same boat bravely decided to throw a party between Christmas and New Year, only to be met with the disappointment of having only three people show up. Yes – three.
To make matters worse, it was a milestone birthday, in a venue 500km from the woman’s home.
Posting to Mumsnet, she asked if she was being unreasonable to be “gutted” by the dismal turnout.
“It’s my birthday today, a big one,” she wrote.
“I don’t live in the UK anymore but decided to throw a party back home to celebrate this milestone, with drinks, food and entertainment laid on.
Top Comments
I remember my sixteenth birthday, my friend had organised a 'surprise' lunch st a local cafe we went to regularly. Only when we turned up, none of my friends had arrived yet. So it left my poor friend stuttering embarrassed that she had organised a surprise but no one had yet arrived though the start time was half an hour prior. Everyone turned up eventually, one who was 1.5 hours late. But I felt so humiliated that none had actually bothered to show on time, sort of defeating the purpose of a surprise. So I can totally understand where this person was coming from...
I have a couple of follow-up questions: What day was the party scheduled for? Was it the weekend or a weekday? This was still the holiday, were they even in the city? Have you kept in touch with the people you invited or has your friendship dropped to the wayside. Did you ask them to RSVP so that you would have some idea of who would be attending or did you just assume people would be happy to see you and show up? I think the answers to these questions might help explain the lack of attendance.