I turned 30 on Saturday. I have a general policy of not celebrating my birthday, either on this blog or in real life, but a person only turns 30 once, right? Not only that, but I turned 30 on a Saturday, which is statistically unlikely enough that I felt cosmically obligated to throw a party.
Confession: threw a birthday party once where no one showed up. You are probably feeling sorry for me now, but wait! You'll feel even worse in a second, when I admit that this was not even the first time I'd thrown a party where no one came. The first time it happened was in college: Alex and I tried to meet our neighbors by inviting them to our house for snacks and drinks (at the time I think we called them hors d'oeuvres, but mini pizza bagels don't count as hors d'oeuvres to me anymore). There were 6 units in the building, with a combined occupancy of approximately 22. No one showed up. Was this because we invited them via flyers shoved under doors? Perhaps. In any event, we ended up eating a lot of mini pizza bagel bites by ourselves and then practically forcing our upstairs neighbors (who we actually already knew, but who still didn't show up) to come hang out with us.
That was back in 2007. Three years later, I threw that birthday party where no one showed up. Actually, this is an exaggeration: three people showed up. [Correction: Alex has brought to my attention that she was there too that night. I had no memory of her being there (sorry, Alex!) but after extensively combing through old emails and blogs, she has confirmed it. She even lost her coat at DC9 that night, and claims she had a lot of fun anyway. So: 4 people showed up, and my memory is faulty.] They are three [four] people I really like, but when you invite 20 and only three [four] come, it's a serious blow to the ego. I was turning 25 and I had been in DC for only five months. This was the second semester of my first year of grad school, and I was miserable. Being miserable, I was feeling the need to celebrate myself. It didn't work.
It was an embarrassing but formative moment in my life. I did learn a lesson: only throw parties when you're feeling okay about yourself, because as it turns out, when you're a sad sack very few people want to hang out with you. I also developed some anxiety about parties, however, and what happens to one's self-esteem when no one shows up to them. So when it began to snow really heavily on Saturday morning, 10 hours before my party, I became rather nervous. When that snow developed into a full-blown storm and then morphed into sleet and freezing rain--making the whole city a cold, slushy ice mess--I became very nervous.
But: people came! I wore ugly snow boots and ratty jeans*, the cake decorations were forgotten in the rush to secure an UberXL, and some of the guests were scared away by the weather but...people came! They were often a bit frozen and grumpy upon arrival, but once they had a drink in their hand and some cake in their mouth, we all had a good time.
So my party-giving anxiety has been somewhat alleviated. I hope that this bodes well for my 30th decade. Maybe I will become a regular party thrower! (Possible.) The next Martha Stewart! (Unlikely.) Or I could even start enjoying planning my wedding! (Extremely unlikely.) You never know. There is always room for change.
*I left the house to get brunch at 11am, but the roads got so bad so fast that I didn't want to keep driving around. So we parked the car at a friend's house nearby and camped out there until it was time for the party. Hence the sad, non-festive attire.
Confession: threw a birthday party once where no one showed up. You are probably feeling sorry for me now, but wait! You'll feel even worse in a second, when I admit that this was not even the first time I'd thrown a party where no one came. The first time it happened was in college: Alex and I tried to meet our neighbors by inviting them to our house for snacks and drinks (at the time I think we called them hors d'oeuvres, but mini pizza bagels don't count as hors d'oeuvres to me anymore). There were 6 units in the building, with a combined occupancy of approximately 22. No one showed up. Was this because we invited them via flyers shoved under doors? Perhaps. In any event, we ended up eating a lot of mini pizza bagel bites by ourselves and then practically forcing our upstairs neighbors (who we actually already knew, but who still didn't show up) to come hang out with us.
That was back in 2007. Three years later, I threw that birthday party where no one showed up. Actually, this is an exaggeration: three people showed up. [Correction: Alex has brought to my attention that she was there too that night. I had no memory of her being there (sorry, Alex!) but after extensively combing through old emails and blogs, she has confirmed it. She even lost her coat at DC9 that night, and claims she had a lot of fun anyway. So: 4 people showed up, and my memory is faulty.] They are three [four] people I really like, but when you invite 20 and only three [four] come, it's a serious blow to the ego. I was turning 25 and I had been in DC for only five months. This was the second semester of my first year of grad school, and I was miserable. Being miserable, I was feeling the need to celebrate myself. It didn't work.
It was an embarrassing but formative moment in my life. I did learn a lesson: only throw parties when you're feeling okay about yourself, because as it turns out, when you're a sad sack very few people want to hang out with you. I also developed some anxiety about parties, however, and what happens to one's self-esteem when no one shows up to them. So when it began to snow really heavily on Saturday morning, 10 hours before my party, I became rather nervous. When that snow developed into a full-blown storm and then morphed into sleet and freezing rain--making the whole city a cold, slushy ice mess--I became very nervous.
But: people came! I wore ugly snow boots and ratty jeans*, the cake decorations were forgotten in the rush to secure an UberXL, and some of the guests were scared away by the weather but...people came! They were often a bit frozen and grumpy upon arrival, but once they had a drink in their hand and some cake in their mouth, we all had a good time.
So my party-giving anxiety has been somewhat alleviated. I hope that this bodes well for my 30th decade. Maybe I will become a regular party thrower! (Possible.) The next Martha Stewart! (Unlikely.) Or I could even start enjoying planning my wedding! (Extremely unlikely.) You never know. There is always room for change.
*I left the house to get brunch at 11am, but the roads got so bad so fast that I didn't want to keep driving around. So we parked the car at a friend's house nearby and camped out there until it was time for the party. Hence the sad, non-festive attire.
4 comments:
Happy birthday porkix!
Thanks, Gremlix.
Thank goodness for documentary evidence in blog form.
Indeed! Turns out that documenting your life on a blog can be helpful. Memories can be tricky, but blogs never lie.
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