23

 It’s normal to hear from less people each year on your birthday, right? 


I remember in my late teens I would get 30-40 happy birthdays on social media from people i barely knew. Today? Maybe 6. It doesn’t bother me, it just makes me question whether or not my life is moving in the right direction. 


Or people are just more friendly when they’re teenagers. Or since the whole world has moved online everyone is less friendly. Or you’ve just voluntarily moved away from these people who once wished you Happy Birthday. Whatever. As you grow older, your circle tightens. Your pool of acquaintances expands, but the circle of people you really care about tightens. 


Or it’s just that nobody says happy birthday on public facebook walls any more, because nobody uses facebook any more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Opposite of a Praise Kink

It always hurts me to be praised or appreciated. Especially over text. When I receive kind words from someone in any context, any medium where the point of the words are to flatter me, appreciate me, or anything like that, I just Can Not read it. It’s always too much. I can’t be like “aww, that’s so sweet! thanks!” and go about my day. I can’t even take people thinking positively of me. I can’t take it when my parents say they love me or when my girlfriend tries to express how she feels. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t know why.   Even when everything was going well, even in the best moments of my life, enjoying the spoils of years of passive effort, I would not be able to take ‘Congratulations’ comfortably.  
Read more

the elephant

yesterday at zoo with friends. struggle to repress dark thoughts. we get to the elephant. it’s in jail. dark dirt room with big roman pillars. we view it from behind huge glass screen. it stands there sadly. most humanoids are unphased. they comment on its funny trunk.   i’m staring at this big sad creature. staring directly into the void. my friends are ready to move on. i’m silently communicating with the elephant via ESP. i tell him that i feel the same way, all day inside. staring at a screen. wanting to thrash around and break free but knowing it’s pointless. enduring those vacuous stares all day. always under surveillance. moving like you’re underwater. that slight grip in your chest — drowning all the time. i want to touch him. i can’t tell why i think he’s sentient in a way the other animals aren’t. some look in his eyes. we’ve been locked for several minutes now.   friend comes over and says hey lets move on. i’m like okay. but i could stare at this thing all day. for...
Read more

i care too much about how i’m dressed now

i miss when i didn’t care. i miss when i didnt know what went with what and i just put on a pair of jeans and a wrinkled t shirt and some sneakers and walked out the door and didn’t think about it at all. didn’t think about the way people looked at me, didn’t compare myself to them, wasn’t so painfully aware of what expensive clothes look like and who wears them and why. i miss when i was 19 and told my friend "fashion is just a scam to trick poor people into giving their money away" and really meant it. really didn't see any further than that. 
Read more