Rendezvous
18 May 09 : 05.35 AM
I have to admit that I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of birthday wishes I got this year. It's not a lot, I've had more in well, more sociable years. But it's the fact that I've been told I disappeared for 2 years into some sort of self-induced hibernation with a boy and I'm not exactly a social butterfly reborn that gets me wondering, why do these people still bother?
And I hardly reciprocate birthday wishes. (Not that I don't care, I just don't know or remember.)
I mean. At least 80, and I don't even talk to 80 different people in the span of one year. I've got strange numbers that I have to reply "Thanks! but you are?" only to find out I know them from a distant, forgotten past. Or people that I don't think I've had more than 3 functioning conversations with in the past, say 3 YEARS, wish me a happy birthday. Or people I don't think I've had more than 3 functioning conversations with, say EVER, wish me a happy birthday. And people who actually remember somehow, because they're not cheating on any social network sites that promptly notifies everyone my birth date.
In the most juvenile way possible, I was disappointed when the clock struck 12 and I only got 3 immediate birthday wishes. 2 phone calls, and one's from my Dad. At the risk of sounding conceited, didn't the phone use to ring off the hook?!
But in the subsequent hours to come, even an hour before my birthday was up, I received a steady flow of texts that reminded me that I'm still remembered. I replied to the texts that I used to ignore. I said thank you to phone calls and genuinely meant it. I mean, since Oct'07, I almost exclusively hang out with Helme and Edd, and I used to see them like, once every two months or smth? Possibly even more sporadic. (Two Decembers ago, Edd said to me, "I know there's a 99% chance that you'll say no judging from past experience, but, would you like to come over now for Texas Hold 'Em?" Which is incredibly telling. And for the record, I said yes that night.) This apparent lack of any concrete friendships (with other than my ex-love) didn't faze me one bit. Why does it bother me now?
The truth is, I kinda understand why this somehow matters to me now. And why I used to not give a fuck. That I could go on months on end without initiating a single phone call or text anyone before, and now I can't. This almost reeks of attention-seeking but the psychoanalyst in me can't blame myself. I realize why and I hate that I should be feeling this way. Things like that make me want to go back to that state of self-induced hibernation. I need to get out of my head.