Thursday, March 27, 2014

Answering advice columns with conspiracy theories

My 35th birthday is coming up about a month from now. I don’t have much in the way of family and friends to celebrate with (we are new to the city we live in), so I haven’t made any plans yet. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about it until today. I’m not sure what I want to do this year, but the reason it was brought to my attention today is that I just received an email invitation to attend my sister's boyfriend’s surprise birthday party next month (they live in the same city as us, but have been here for a few years longer and are much more outgoing and social than my husband and me).  Except...

My sister scheduled her boyfriend's surprise birthday party for my birthday! This is logistically understandable because our birthdays (his and mine) are five days apart, and my birthday is the Saturday night that week. However, there is absolutely no mention on the invitation of it being my birthday too, and obviously I am not being jointly included in the “surprise” part of the party. I would gladly go to the party if it was being held any other day, but I know I will resent all the attention, gifts, etc. being directed towards him by his friends and family, while the fact that it is actually my birthday is either ignored or unknown by other party goers.

I texted my sister to ask her if she realized the party was scheduled for my birthday, and her response was: "Yes I know I meant to apologize about that. It was the only weekend we could do it. I hope you can come! But I understand if you can’t."

My solution would be to go away for the night or the weekend, but we are a bit short on cash these days. What would you recommend I do in this situation? Should I go the party and suck it up by not saying anything about my birthday, or should I plan something else for that night?

Conspiracy theory: the letter-writer's sister is actually planning a surprise birthday party for the letter-writer.  Pretending it's a party for her boyfriend is the perfect cover, because it provides an explanation for any party-planning she's caught doing!

1 comment:

laura k said...

It's also a sitcom solution.