I'm conducting an informal experiment. I'll be looking for results twice, once in five months and again in seventeen months. This experiment requires a few minutes each day at most, and some days it takes no time at all.
Curious?
Over the last few years I've been terrible at wishing my Facebook friends happy birthday. I wanted to leave a nice note for some, but I worried that if I remembered one, but not another, then someone's feelings would be hurt. That's how my brain works. So I chose to do nothing. I would send texts and emails, but I wouldn't write anything on their wall.
Big deal, right?
Well, it turns out I'm truly terrible at keeping in touch with people. I already knew this about myself, but at least I used to comment and say hello on Facebook. I don't really do that so much anymore. Well, I do comment, but only about a third of the time I want to. Other than that I'm kind of a social media hermit. I even type replies, then delete them before publishing anything. Over the past few years, the number of people who wished me a happy birthday went down. I wondered if it had anything to do with my lousy online presence. I hadn't put in the time to maintain our virtual friendship, why should they?
This year I decided to do something different. During 2015 I am wishing all of my Facebook friends a happy birthday. So far a few have even written back. Which means I should probably go respond...
I want to see if the number of people that wish me a happy birthday increases. Because my birthday falls halfway through the year, I'll need to go through a full cycle to check for results, which means eighteen months of online birthday cheer.
I'm sure I've just skewed my results by writing about it, but I have a good reason. This week I discovered a flaw. Two of my good friends had birthdays. In years past I would have sent an email or a text. (Birthday phone calls tend to be reserved for blood relations since that's usually the only gift we give, because in addition to being terrible at keeping in touch, I'm truly awful at giving gifts.) This year I wrote on their Facebook pages, because I had to in order to follow-through with my goal. After I sent the messages I felt like it wasn't enough. But I had already sent a message, so another in text or email form would be overkill, right? Except that Facebook really isn't very personal.
And now you know my first-world problem for today.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Margot my sweet baby I love you and I don't need a card did tell me you love me. Don't worry about little things that really doesn't matter anyway.
Post a Comment