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This article is an edited version of one that originally appeared on Reeze's Substack. Sign up here .

I don't have enough friends to invite to a birthday party.

Then again, it never helped that my birthday is one of the worst days it could fall on, December 31st.

The amount of times people have told me, "That's the best day! The whole world is celebrating your birthday! You must have the best parties!" I hate to break it to you, but no.

You kind of said it already — the whole world is celebrating, but it's definitely not for me.

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Here's a little taste of what it's like: After just moving to Dublin, my partner's really kind and friendly Spanish coworker invited us to her house party for our first New Year's Eve here.

We went, cramming into her small Dublin apartment (everything is so small here), where 30 to 40 people had shown up, having a good time. I still remember how her smile froze a notch when my partner let it slip that it was also my birthday (a mistake I generally don't make, having been in this awkwardness before).

She quickly threw something together — put a candle on a cookie or other desserty thing she had out on the table — and with the three of us in a little circle in the corner, she had me blow it out as she clapped. It was cute, but also a bit cringe. Then she patted me on the back and rejoined her roaring party.

Still, terrible birthday date aside, the bigger reason for why I've never thrown my own party — the real reason — is that I've never been the type to have a dozen friends checking in on me with a text every week.

I've been blessed enough to spend my birthday with people that matter to me, whether that be my parents, my brother, my life partner, or a close friend or two.

But I've never gathered enough people that random onlookers would call it a party. (Or at least, none that I can remember. My last one was probably when I was six.)

I'm not the type of person that wants to juggle having forty different friends. I'm not the type of person that stays up all hours of the night texting people.

I've gone to parties, gone clubbing on Wednesdays. I don't feel the need to shout over blaring music until my voice goes hoarse anymore.

Nowadays, I'd much prefer hanging out by some food trucks on a lake somewhere. If there's a gathering at a pub, there's a fifty-fifty chance I'll make it–or bail to read a book or watch movies on the couch at home.

And yet, I have a confession to make. I have a dream that I've never told anyone before. Actually, I've only ever told my partner this. It's so outside of my character, though, that he probably thought I was joking (he won't after reading this).

I tell people that I'm not big on birthdays. That I don't like parties that much anymore. It's a good excuse, and takes the sting away.

And yet…and yet…

In my heart of hearts, in my soul of souls, one of my biggest wishes in life is to have a surprise birthday party.

I have my partner. I have my family. But what's still missing, I feel, are the friends.

I want my partner to open the door to our home one year and have friends popping out of the walls and the furniture, crowding the living room and disturbing the neighbors with their shouting voices.

Balloons everywhere, banners on the walls. I've never celebrated my own birthday with decorations. And so, in this fantasy, my friends took the time to do that for me.

Not only did they commit to the planning and the secrecy, they also did the commute (because that's what friendship boils down to in adulthood) and the set-up.

I'm not a public crier, but I'm 99 per cent sure I would give the loudest laugh of delight and then promptly burst into tears.

But honestly, I'm not sure if I'll ever get there. If I'll ever be able to fill a room with people I call real friends, not just "people I occasionally see and hang out with."

Last year I went to the birthday party of my friend's partner. Even as I was having a good time, laughing my ass off with a drink in one hand and a ping-pong paddle in the other, a part of me was doing math. A part of me was silently counting off all the people that had shown up for him. All the friends.

I know that some people have birthday parties that are padded with a sprinkling of coworkers here, some neighbours there, and casual friends you'd only see every once in a while.

This party was different. Hell, you could tell it was different because the birthday boy gave a speech in the middle of it, calling everyone there more than friends–as family.

I was quietly aching inside. All these people that were there for him, who actually seemed to care for him — and not that they "just hung out sometimes" or "just saw each other at social settings." I had looked around and thought, how many people could I invite like this?

And the kicker was, I knew that he had more friends back home in Chile. Really close friends from childhood that he still played video games with every weekend. This wasn't even everyone for him.

That's a sore point with me, because I don't have that. I'm talking about the friends that go way back, that know exactly what you're going to order at the restaurant, that text to check up on you after that hard conversation with your mum, that hold "that one night" over your head like an inside joke and a threat that makes everyone laugh, you included.

Sometimes I wonder if other people notice the lack. I don't pepper my conversations with My best friend said, or I have to catch up with a buddy from high school.

I don't fly to cities to catch a concert with an old friend or go on girls' trips with ex-roommates.

Besides family, no one comes to visit me in Dublin (okay, it was that one time…in eight years).

I was the quiet kid growing up (oh, how I resented being called that. Like "quiet" meant I had nothing to say, when that couldn't be further from the truth).

My family moved around a lot. The most dramatic move being right before high school — just in time for me to go to class with 900 other kids that were complete strangers (it was a giant school).

In ninth grade, I sat with girls that, to this day, I can't remember a single conversation or memory of. I sat with them "just to sit" with somebody, and I probably said only a handful of sentences to them the whole year.

From tenth to twelfth grade, I decided it was better to sit alone than to go through that again. Than to feel like I wasn't fully myself.

So I remember warm, sunny days sitting on a bench in this little outdoor corridor that connected the cafeteria to the courtyard, eating lunch on my own while reading a book or doing school work (grade-A student, because, of course).

What the adults don't realise when they call a child "quiet" is that they're actually observant. The fakeness among my peers didn't escape me. I quietly noted the motives hidden underneath the surface, the things said behind each other's backs, the dating being done just for the sake of bragging about conquests. And I didn't care to be a part of it.

One of my teachers said she'd always remember how, during class, they were all laughing about something–and I was the only one who wasn't, because my nose was stuck in a book. I was removed from it all. In a separate plane of existence.

I became a self-possessed loner with a poker face. I wouldn't say I had a wall up as much as I had a moat — an aura of untouchableness that surrounded me so that I could be stoically me at the centre of it. An island unto myself. Instead of silence being my weakness, I tried to make it my armour.

I did eventually make a smattering of friends in high school — the ones that were more genuine.

But the loner-ism had already settled deep into my skin by then. I never fully opened up to them, never gave them much of my time. I had prioritised self-protection at all costs. Instead of needing people, I chose not to need them. As long as my relationship with myself was good, I was good. Or so I thought.

I've grown since those times, when I chose to say that I liked solitude instead of saying I was lonely.

Thankfully, I know the difference now. It was a long journey for me, realising the importance of friendships. One that'd need to be its own separate post. (Let's just say college was a wake-up call. And also, living on my own a few years later–no friends or family–in Japan.)

All this to say, I think that's why I've put a "surprise birthday party" on a pedestal. Because it feels extra special.

You wouldn't expect someone like a neighbour to pop out behind the plant, or a coworker you only talk with at the water cooler. At a surprise birthday party, anyone but your true friends would feel out of place there.

But while I've gotten better at being social — I go to things, I hang out with people — actual friends still feel slightly out of reach. I want the kind that you can text or call out of the blue about whatever mood or thought is riding your mind, good or bad.

The kind that encapsulates all of the conversations had over bar tables and on park benches. The kind that shares belly laughter so good it hurts. The kind that you don't have to worry about "inconveniencing," because you're past all that. Because you're practically family.

Those are the kind of friends that I want filling up my living room for me.

A room full of friends I've poured care into, and who've poured care into me.

I'm happy to say that I'm not a completely hopeless case. Since college, I've made six close friends. The kind that would be there at my surprise birthday party (if they all lived in Dublin, which they don't, but we have to cut me some slack).

Two, unfortunately, I've had a falling out with, and that's a story for another time.

One lives in Dublin. Another moved to Spain, and funnily enough, so did the other not long after (and I'm really, really trying to be better at keeping in touch).

One is a close friend from college, though we only email each other twice a year. Still, we have the kind of history that makes me believe that, if I needed him, he'd be there. And that's what makes a true friend to me. (But let's face it — I do need to work on my staying in touch skills.)

There's another close friend from college that I'm not counting, but he's graduated to life partner a long time ago (hey-o), so he doesn't really count (he is my best friend, but still).

So that's the count. And then the others that are like invisible ink on the list: the could-have-been friends that drifted away like ghosts. Or maybe I did.

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So, four close friends. Four people does not a room make, but still. I'm grateful to have them. These friendships aren't perfect, and I'm still working on making them bloom into something that would last a lifetime. And I'm on the lookout for more. Seeking out the ones who have an opening in their heart and their lives for a friend like me.

And I'm hoping that one day, they'll pop out from behind my furniture. A big cheesy smile on their face, and a lopsided cone-shaped birthday hat on their head that I pretended not to see poking above the sofa cushions when I came in.

For now, I'm still dreaming, and working towards that dream.

Now excuse me while I go text a friend.

This article is an edited version of one that originally appeared on Reeze's Substack. Sign up here.

Feature Image: Getty.