I recently had an idea for something which I think would be very nice to do and so wanted to share it here. I don’t generally like to arrange birthday events for myself – I do sometimes, but usually lots of people can’t attend and then I only see one or two people and feel quite sad about the fact that so many people did not come. I’m grateful for the people who do attend, but it is just not something I generally like to do.
It’s a fact of adult life that people are not likely to all be free at the same time. Different people all have different commitments and schedules and so forth. The chances of having a large group of people free on the same day are slim. What I plan to do for my next birthday is dedicate a whole week to a sequence of meals with one or two people at a time. This, to me, is such an exciting idea for so many reasons. First of all, that’s seven days in a row with a guaranteed social event – I’m usually only able to do between two and four things a week. Secondly, meeting in much smaller groups means that I will definitely get a chance to interact with each person much more directly. The downside of larger events is that there are always some people who you don’t really get a change to say much to. Finally, the chances of finding somebody who’s free on each day of a week are much higher than finding a day that lots of people are free, so this should be a lot easier to organise and will have a higher chance of allowing me to see several friends.
So this is something I would definitely like to do when my next birthday rolls along. Just thinking about it already has me very excited – the only difficulty comes from deciding on who I want to dedicate the individual dinners to! Perhaps this is something for you to try, if you don’t like the stresses of arranging a big event?
