“Hearting” birthday greetings

I turned 52 in October 2019. This statement should please my best friend, who always objects to my propensity to declare myself the age I am for the year even if my birthday is still months away. She is all for accuracy especially because she is a year younger and has no wish to "advance" her age. 

This year, I thought I would remove my birth date from Facebook (FB) because I am really more a lurker, just happy to "heart" or “like” the nice things that are happening to people, congratulate them on their milestones and commiserate when they lose someone dear to them.

At this age, I am also losing a lot of people I know, even those my age. I figured I might just as well begin the phase-out on social media.

But then my birthday came around and sister started the ball rolling by greeting me on FB. Someone picked up on that and then a friend of that someone and soon enough, I have a lot of birthday greetings in just minutes.

I am the type of person who wants to respond to each and every greeting, but when you’re with actual, physical people celebrating your birthday early in the morning with breakfast, you can’t. You can’t ignore them because you’re on your phone.

So you put it off and soon enough you’re going out and real life dictates that you spend the time doing this and that so that you can actually leave the house even as you sneak in a "heart" here and there to show the FB greeter that you love their message, which you really do except that you can’t be physically present but on the phone with the people who want to celebrate your birthday with you.

So you content yourself with “hearting” their greeting for the moment, all the time feeling uncomfortable that you cannot thank them properly.

I have only 660 FB friends. I cannot imagine how it is for those who have thousands.

But then again, I am 52 and considered old school. Maybe in this age of social media, a “heart” is really just enough.

Of course, I say this after I have replied, singly or in groups, to the birthday greetings that I “hearted” a while back.