Birthday Party
It is that time of year again, my birthday. However, this year, instead of constantly complaining about how I am getting older and still have achieved virtually in my life, I decided to use my birthday as a reason to celebrate. Besides whom doesn´t like gifts?
In all honesty, I just couldn't resist a reason not to celebrate since I finally have tons of friends who would want to come to my party and the party expenses are being taken care of. Therefore, I sincerely don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t celebrate.
If I can be honest, I wanted to celebrate my 18th birthday because it is the only age worth celebrating in my opinion. Since it was the age going into adulthood, from there on out, it is only downhill from there. You are only getting older with each year and your health is not at its peak anymore.
Nevertheless, enough about the continuity of time and how we hold no power to stop it. Anyways… My plans got crossed the second a deadly virus entered the country without an invitation. It was quite a shame, but it is what it is.
For my 18th birthday, I would have celebrated in the garden with plenty of good drinks and maybe even grilled food if not that I would have settled with Pizza or fast food in general as well. It would have been a blast but then I remembered…
Back in 2020, during the April months, no one would have wanted to come, not because I didn’t have any friends at that time but simply because all my friends would have been studying for the finals just like I would have done.
Therefore, to a certain extent, I am glad that my 18th birthday plans got crossed by a deadly, unwelcome, and unrelenting virus. Because the party would have been so lame if people just showed up but were too anxious to party since there is an important exam the next morning.
So this year, I finally am settled into a new life in a new city and have new and old friends who want to party with me. I can´t imagine anything better than that. Birthdays are supposed to be celebrated and not mourned.
First things first, I am not a party person. I don’t quite like parties to begin with. Social obligations drain me really quickly. Normally, I would avoid parties if I had the choice. Much less do I like to celebrate my birthday which I want to keep a secret.
Now, you may be wondering why I wanted to celebrate my birthday which no one should know and party even though I have a very strong dislike towards social events, to begin with. Am I the kind of person who loves to torment myself?
Well, no. Parties may drain me, and birthdays give me a sense of mortality. Nevertheless, science excites me to a degree that I simply forget that it is a draining social gathering or as others call it a party and birthdays are, in my unsolicited opinion, as unpleasant as they come.
This year, I wanted to do something with my friends because I have the feeling that I barely get to see them all with the scheduling problems we keep running into and a birthday is generally a good excuse to meet up again.
Besides that, I was always curious about how my friends would interact with one another. Because in my opinion, I have the most different kinds of friends who know the most different versions of myself so after doing what I do best, I wondered how they would be around each other.
In the best-case scenario, we would have a fantastic time and we would spend a whole evening just simply enjoying each other´s company and having a few drinks. Worst case scenario, we would all sit around the table in complete and utter silence.
To prevent the worst-case scenario from happening, I´ve implemented a trick that I learnt when I was younger. Because the worst parties I have been to have been dinner parties since sitting around the table with many people could lead to missed conversations and awkward silences.
I hated dinner parties, especially without alcohol, since I am not the kind of person who could sit still for a long amount of time and much less hold a draining conversation with someone who I might not even know.
Don’t get me wrong, a dinner party with the right people are the best because you can laugh into the night together and completely forget about time. There have been some dinner parties, I would love to go to again but then there are some which I would want to avoid.
Therefore, when I was younger, I learnt that if I want a party, it better be a party with some activities to do. I am, as mentioned, not the kind of person who can hold a conversation for a long time with multiple people. Therefore, I need something fun to do so I can “recharge” my social batteries.
Come in, for this year´s bowling birthday party. It is unlike laser tag parties where everyone is active all the time so that there wouldn’t be any time to catch up since in the breaks all people would want to do is catch their breath. Laser tag is more exhausting than people think.
Bowling gives plenty of opportunities to talk to each other while one is bowling and prevents awkward silences since if there is nothing to talk about, there is always the bowling itself as a conversation topic.
If someone hits a perfect strike, you have a reason to celebrate together and congratulate the bowler. If someone barely misses the pins, you have a reason to pay some sympathy to the bowler. Bowling can be fun if done right.
Moreover, bowling is for everyone. Whether you can bowl or not, it is a fantastic opportunity to just get together when you haven´t been able to be with each other for some time and haven´t had time to take a break and catch your breath under the educational pressure. You can just unwind.
If bowling is not right, at least there would be drinks as well. From experience, I have also learnt that alcohol loosens people up a lot. People who are relaxed are, people you can have fun with. Even if alcohol is not for you, you can still have plenty of fun watching your friends drink and become drunker over the course of the evening.
Alcohol is fantastic. I am not only saying that because I am a chemist and alcohol has varied functions in chemistry. But alcohol can make people drowsy and drowsy people are so much fun to mess with sometimes.
Much to my pleasure, I have found a fantastic location which would provide the bowling alley along with bowling shoes, drinks, and some snacks. Since I don’t want to overextend myself as a host, I made it clear that if anyone wants more drinks/snacks they would have to pay for them themselves.
The location is also fantastic because not only does it have bowling alleys but it has every sport imaginable. Laser tag, football, billiard, badminton, etc… They even have a bar and a restaurant, where people could stay after the party. So a recreational centre which is so practical.
Now comes the organisational part of the birthday party. I needed to check the expenses, set a date, send out invitations, book the bowling alley, etc… Not that it was a lot to do since I just needed to book everything and so on but oh boy…
After sending out invitations, I remembered why I have a strong disliking towards hosting parties. Because after the invitations were sent out, I watched as many people I wanted to party with just decline.
This is where the scheduling issue from before comes to light again. Now everyone has a job/ education so finding a time when everyone has time is like finding a needle in a haystack, nearly impossible.
Therefore, I had to deal with the fact that I won´t be able to see some of my friends I haven´t seen for so long. Which is quite a shame. It is just sad that some people won´t be there. But that is the reality of growing up I guess.
To be fair, I thought everyone would be able to make it since I sent out invitations really early but as it turns out, planning in advance with a really diverse group of people doesn’t work. It seems like a good idea but does not work even though you wished upon a star.
At the start, I made a list of 16 people I wanted to invite to my party and only 12 were able to make it. I mean 12 out of 16 is still a 75% attendance rate but I am still a bit sad that not everyone was able to make it.
However, I didn’t let that tidbit of a fact get me down. After the number of people who are free on that day was confirmed, I booked the bowling alley online and got the confirmation a few days later. That was it.
I didn’t need to arrange food, drinks or anything else. If I had to I probably wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate because I was already busy enough, if I had to spend a lot of time planning my own party, I would have sincerely declined even though all expenses are paid and I get to see some of my friends again.
Unluckily for me, I officially started planning my birthday party at the end of February while my birthday was in the middle of April. This meant, waiting and if I can honest, I am not the most patient when it comes to something I am excited about.
I mean it is like me to not procrastinate on anything I can do right now but I should have procrastinated a bit since now I am feeling like a child during the months leading up to Christmas. Giddy and excitable. When that day comes, I would be like a child on Christmas. Trust me.
Besides, the waiting, there are also tons of questions about what I want for my birthday flooding in especially now that my birthday is edging closer with each passing day. Which I find arduously annoying.
I mean I love gifts and surprises but I hate asking for them because it seems selfish. And I really hate that feeling of asking other people for something because anything they can get me I can get for myself. They don’t need to.
So whenever someone asks me what I want for my birthday, I desperately want to say something but I end up saying I don’t know since it feels uncomfortable and I really don’t know what to say since in the spur of the moment, I can´t think of anything they could get me.
Anything I could ask for, what I currently need, is probably too expensive for my friends to get me and in no way will I ever ask for it from them. However small things I don’t quite need. The only thing that is something I need and not too expensive is food but I don’t want them to do my grocery shopping either since that would just be awkward.
Nevertheless, I am excited about what they come up with since as mentioned I love surprises. And it is generally fun to see how well my friends know me. However, a birthday party isn’t all about gifts. It is also about the people who you are celebrating with.
I can´t wait to see how the party turns out. I really hope that it would be plenty of fun and that my friends have plenty of fun. I also hope that my friends would interact with one another since as mentioned, they are a diverse group of people so everyone has fun.