The rant for the week...

...is directed at people who feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they receive happy-birthday messages from their hundreds of Facebook “friends”. My wife tells me about a friend who gushed to her on the phone about how her day had “absolutely been made” by the 30-40 birthday wishes on her Wall. (She didn’t seem anywhere near as excited about the surprise party her ever-lovin’ husband and child had planned for her...in the drabness that is the real world.)

Also recently, I was surprised to see that someone on my list had written an enthusiastic “Thanks to everyone for remembering my birthday! I’m so touched!” Uh, remembering? Really? I barely use Facebook at all, but even I know that the vile thing keeps generating these sidebar reminders that tell you – starting at least four days in advance, so you can buy virtual sheep or eggs as gifts – whose birthday it is, and when. This makes it impossible, no matter how intently you try, to forget anyone’s birthday (except for those who are sensible enough not to include the date in their Profile details, like your truly). And these notifications are magnets for people who find it therapeutic to post a standard-form “Hey, happy birthday! Have a good one :) ” on the Facebook page of someone whom they’ve never met and never want to. Naturally, much cloying gratitude is directed at these unworthy posters.

The sharp-minded among you will have guessed by now that this rant stems from a deep private sorrow. A few months ago I wrote out a nice birthday message for an old school-friend now living in California and mailed it to both his email Ids (being unsure which one he was accessing more often). It wasn’t a message written in template form, it was a personal note where I also included a non-birthday-related question or two. The day passed, and another two after it, without a word of reply. Perhaps he’s met with a crippling accident or been devoured by bears in one of those national parks he visits so often, I thought, but something told me this was unlikely. Then I happened to check his Facebook account (typically, I hadn’t even remembered that we were FB friends – I’d thought that honour was reserved for people one didn’t like in real life) and discovered that he had written painstakingly composed “Thank yous” to every single one of the 30-odd happy budday messages on his Wall.

I brought the subject up when he visited Delhi recently and he at least had the decency to look shame-faced. After a weak attempt at hedging, that is.

“Um, I don’t check my email that regularly.”

“You don’t check your work email regularly?”

“Okay, sorry, I must have overlooked it. These days it’s just so much easier to reply to messages on Facebook.”

Then he tried to wriggle out of the situation in the oldest possible way – by using a word with a French accent, followed by a little laugh sound. “Email is passé, heh heh.”

Well, not yet. But birthday greetings as I once knew them definitely are.

[Earlier social-networking rants: 1, 2]