Birthdays and Love Pellets, a Reflection
Today is my birthday. I turn 29. I don't like to celebrate my birthdays. A birthday is not special. If anything, its distinction should go to my mom, for carrying me for 9 months and then going through labor twenty nine years ago today. I didn't do anything except take my first breath of air. I almost forgot until I got an e-mail from my dad just now. It simply wished me happy birthday, and attached is a photo our family took together on the day before I left during my last visit. I remember not wanting to take the photo, part and parcel with my distaste for celebrating my own birthday, but I admit I am glad it was taken because seeing that photo made me smile. We all looked genuinely like who we really are.
A couple nights ago I went out to a lounge in TriBeCa where several people are concurrently celebrating birthdays that occur this week. I don't really know them, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Such is the nature of business school parties, where a semi-stranger's birthday is more than enough of an excuse to dance and drink the night away. Its success is ostensibly gauged by the participation level of said party, so I'm sure my being there, however brief it was, would not be considered crashing, and indeed, maybe even considered a plus.
Peggy Noonan has written a piece about how the digitalization of our social lives is just people, "one way or another, [...] looking for a love pellet." Perhaps that's why I trekked down there that night, around midnight, sustained by the euphoria of just watching Roger Federer go into God Mode and waxing Robin Soderling in a US Open quarterfinal. Seeking a love pellet. Seeing if my presence would raise the spirits of another human being. Confirming I am, if not wanted, at least welcomed. That I belonged.
On an otherwise dead Wednesday evening, b-school students reaping the windfall of Jewish holidays took over the TriBeCa joint. It was a textbook cookie cutter party. Club music throbbed. Alcohol flowed. It was impossible to hold a conversation over the volume, the inebriation, and the constant love pellet seekers that thwart all attempts at stringing a coherent train of thought together as if the physical challenges were not enough. "Hi! How ARE you? Here's something funny I will share with you! Do you find me attractive? Okay, be right back!"
I downed a $4 Stella Artois and left within 15 minutes. Outside the lounge, it was eerily desolated. It's as close to empty as New York City will ever be, 1am on a midweek night, a stark contrast to the gyrating mass of humans just inside that building. Did I find my love pellets? Yes and no. Expectation is a bitch. I rode the train home alone, feeling a little sad, and remembered why I tend to avoid those parties--they make you feel hollow once it's over, whether it's in 15 minutes or all night long.
Facebook has revolutionized the birthday game. Or not revolutionized, more like diluted. When it's somebody's birthday, Facebook helpfully places an icon on your landing page indicating so. This spawns a torrent of happy birthday posts on the birthday boy/girl's wall. In theory, it is wonderful. No one's birthday is forgotten. Everyone is popular for at least one day out of the year. But I can't help but think how cheap it is. Whereas in the past, you pen a letter or pick up a phone, forcing one to actually make a semblance of conversation, now you click "post" and type "happy birthday", click "submit", and voila! Your friend duty is complete. Love pellet sent across cyberspace via Facebook, enjoy it!
I have become old fashioned these days. I find myself on the phone more often, calling someone instead of texting or e-mailing or instant messaging. That's if I'm even on instant messenger anymore. And I like it. There is a humanness to a phone call that is almost scary to those like me who in prior have largely lived life behind a computer monitor. There is no filter, no time to prepare answers, no neat little window compartmentalizing my conversation with you. I am exposed and completely dedicated to you on the other end of the line. It is like a Vulcan mind meld, and moving beyond the initial fear, it is deeply, deeply satisfying to be in a good phone conversation.
I took off my Facebook-listed birthday two days prior. Many good friends still remembered without the help of The Social Network, and my wall started to collect those incoming well-wishes. But it made a difference. Last year, it was a torrential flood of happy birthdays, a good many of them from my new friends I just met at NYU. This year, it was exclusively old, pre-business-school friends. Obviously, those that have known me for just the past year cannot compare to those I have called friends for the greater part of 5, 10, even 15 years, but that's just it. I think happy birthdays have to be duly earned and duly given. True friendship needs to be seasoned. And only then are those love pellets the truly nourishing kind, not the empty caloried, cavity producing variant so widely sought and so carelessly given.
***
A couple nights ago I went out to a lounge in TriBeCa where several people are concurrently celebrating birthdays that occur this week. I don't really know them, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Such is the nature of business school parties, where a semi-stranger's birthday is more than enough of an excuse to dance and drink the night away. Its success is ostensibly gauged by the participation level of said party, so I'm sure my being there, however brief it was, would not be considered crashing, and indeed, maybe even considered a plus.
Peggy Noonan has written a piece about how the digitalization of our social lives is just people, "one way or another, [...] looking for a love pellet." Perhaps that's why I trekked down there that night, around midnight, sustained by the euphoria of just watching Roger Federer go into God Mode and waxing Robin Soderling in a US Open quarterfinal. Seeking a love pellet. Seeing if my presence would raise the spirits of another human being. Confirming I am, if not wanted, at least welcomed. That I belonged.
On an otherwise dead Wednesday evening, b-school students reaping the windfall of Jewish holidays took over the TriBeCa joint. It was a textbook cookie cutter party. Club music throbbed. Alcohol flowed. It was impossible to hold a conversation over the volume, the inebriation, and the constant love pellet seekers that thwart all attempts at stringing a coherent train of thought together as if the physical challenges were not enough. "Hi! How ARE you? Here's something funny I will share with you! Do you find me attractive? Okay, be right back!"
I downed a $4 Stella Artois and left within 15 minutes. Outside the lounge, it was eerily desolated. It's as close to empty as New York City will ever be, 1am on a midweek night, a stark contrast to the gyrating mass of humans just inside that building. Did I find my love pellets? Yes and no. Expectation is a bitch. I rode the train home alone, feeling a little sad, and remembered why I tend to avoid those parties--they make you feel hollow once it's over, whether it's in 15 minutes or all night long.
***
Facebook has revolutionized the birthday game. Or not revolutionized, more like diluted. When it's somebody's birthday, Facebook helpfully places an icon on your landing page indicating so. This spawns a torrent of happy birthday posts on the birthday boy/girl's wall. In theory, it is wonderful. No one's birthday is forgotten. Everyone is popular for at least one day out of the year. But I can't help but think how cheap it is. Whereas in the past, you pen a letter or pick up a phone, forcing one to actually make a semblance of conversation, now you click "post" and type "happy birthday", click "submit", and voila! Your friend duty is complete. Love pellet sent across cyberspace via Facebook, enjoy it!
I have become old fashioned these days. I find myself on the phone more often, calling someone instead of texting or e-mailing or instant messaging. That's if I'm even on instant messenger anymore. And I like it. There is a humanness to a phone call that is almost scary to those like me who in prior have largely lived life behind a computer monitor. There is no filter, no time to prepare answers, no neat little window compartmentalizing my conversation with you. I am exposed and completely dedicated to you on the other end of the line. It is like a Vulcan mind meld, and moving beyond the initial fear, it is deeply, deeply satisfying to be in a good phone conversation.
I took off my Facebook-listed birthday two days prior. Many good friends still remembered without the help of The Social Network, and my wall started to collect those incoming well-wishes. But it made a difference. Last year, it was a torrential flood of happy birthdays, a good many of them from my new friends I just met at NYU. This year, it was exclusively old, pre-business-school friends. Obviously, those that have known me for just the past year cannot compare to those I have called friends for the greater part of 5, 10, even 15 years, but that's just it. I think happy birthdays have to be duly earned and duly given. True friendship needs to be seasoned. And only then are those love pellets the truly nourishing kind, not the empty caloried, cavity producing variant so widely sought and so carelessly given.
