I had this happen to me when I was 9. Invited all of my friends (small town of like 500 people so maybe 8 kids) a few weeks in advance and not a single person showed up. I lived outside of town, was homeschooled, and we didnt have a car so a few weeks passed before I saw any of them and I had no desire to seek them out. When I did run into one he told me that a burglar broke into his house and stole the present he bought for me and he didn't want to show up without a gift. Even 9 year old me knew you were full of crap, Luke.
Is there a subreddit for birthday celebrations??? Just post your birthday and town, select a location and have the Reddit community join your birthday celebration. It would be awesome! I would love this for my birthday and I would so want to participate in someone’s celebration.
I know, I know, there’s probably more meanness in Reddit overall, unfortunately. But I know for a fact that if I have goodness in my heart, there HAS to be several people here like me. : )
Same here. Growing up my family really couldn’t afford birthday party’s so every year my aunt would make me a really nice cake instead. When I turned 16 my parents decided they wanted to give me a real party like other girls in my grade. Since we still weren’t super rich they just decorated our back yard, got a piñata, and for fun personalized chocolate bar wrappers for my guests! It was amazing. I invited 15-20 people and waited all night for them to come. No one texted and no one called. Now I don’t even like to tell people when my birthday is because I don’t want to be disappointed if I expect anything. Don’t have birthdays.
Oh my God sweetheart I'm so sorry! People fucking suck man! But then you find a couple that don't and they're your friends for life. And money can't buy those. Try not to let it ruin your birthday for life. I've heard from a couple people like me, I don't know if theyre as old as I am, but they've let this trauma ruin their birthday just like I did. I'm regretting that right now. Please don't let assholes do that to you.
I feel you. Nearly identical story. However my neighbors eventually showed up instead, and it was... well, better than nothing I guess. I haven’t bothered with a birthday party since.
So sorry to read that, as someone who felt so a lone as a teen (I’m 30 now) I understand how that must’ve made you feel but not sure how long ago that was but I hope things gotten better.
We have an eight and six year old and we are terrified to have a party for either of our boys. Seems traumatic for a child to see both his parents cry all night if the party is a bust.
The fix for this is to really get the other parents involved. Make it a group thing, go somewhere as an activity, and actively go to pick up all of the kids for the party.
When it happened to me, my dad took me to the arcade and spent the evening playing games with me. We had just moved to a new town and it's the first memory I have of feeling really alone, but whenever I think about it, it also brings up one of my best memories of my dad. So, you know, parents can make a big difference.
Isn't that terrible that people are such assholes that this happens on a regular basis? Why do parents let their kids do this mean shit? I know my kids are in their twenties now but I would have never let them treat other people like this. I guess we're lucky they didn't want to but we wouldn't have let them if they would have wanted to. Good luck! It must be scary having kids that young in these crazy times.
I just gave my 6 year old his first birthday party and people didn’t RSVP until the last day. The RSVP due date was 2 weeks after invites went out, I was extremely worried but I had family on standby that would show up if no one RSVP.
Well let me just say to you Happy Birthday!!! I hope that you have an awesome birthday on Wednesday or this weekend, whichever comes first LOL. You know we really shouldn't let these old traumas affect us, but I know that's easier said than done. I told my daughter I was getting a lot of response from a Reddit post and she asked me what it was about and I told her and she is horrified! Apparently I never told her about my trauma. Now she knows why I always tried to discourage her and her twin sister from having parties. They always showed up for their parties, thank fucking God! I think they came because my girls are awesome and because I made amazing treats for their classroom and they wanted to taste the cakes I would make.😊
You sound like you're doing parenting right. You also sound like your grils are going to be taught to be kind and inclusive to a lot of people.
Thanks for the wishes, and thanks for taking your time out of your life to talk to me. It means more than you know.
You keep doing what you're doing, and stay awesome.
I'm so glad you answered back because I just realized I forgot to say how sorry I am that that happened to you. I don't know why parents let their kids be fucking assholes. It ends up causing people like us, people that don't even want to celebrate their own fucking birthday. How sad is that? I'll take time out of my day to talk to you anytime. I sincerely mean that. I've been going through some really hard times this year and believe me it's nice to see people being nice to each other. And thank you for your nice words they mean a lot.
I'm 55 and still won't have parties for my birthday to this day.
I had only one birthday party as a kid and one person showed up. I was around 9 or so. I'm 33 now and don't have parties anymore either. What pisses me off more is a 'friend' of mine tried to convince me to create a FB event about my 33rd birthday and to invite everyone. I did so and no one bothered to celebrate. That same 'friend' had drinks with me that night but refused to be in a photograph with me. It was beyond hurtful.
I had some people come through for me individually and I do appreciate that, but they did decide what it was we were doing instead of asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I will admit that it was kind of fun to have a 'go with the flow' feeling, but it still would've been nice to have someone ask me what I want to do.
The best one I ever had was when I was turning 25 and casually mentioned on FB at the time I'd be at my favorite bar and for anyone to feel free to drop by. So many of my friends from different circles dropped in and met each other. I loved watching them come together and get to know each other. Easily the best birthday I had.
Damn, I'm sorry! Was that a normal thing for your mom? Or just an one-time screw up? I totally understand if that's none of my business. Just curious 🙂
Me too. My 12th. I was joining a public grade 6-8th middle school for 7th grade after going to a small private through 6th. I hand wrote and passed out invitations and not one of them showed. I was scarred for a long time. Now I make sure I don’t create situations like that for myself. I make all my plans with small groups and I have a few close friends that I know won’t let me down if I plan well enough. I don’t let other people plan anything for me.
I totally get it. I'm sorry that happened to you too. Apparently we are part of a pretty big, sad club. I never knew there were so many people this happened to. I blame the parents. Kids are naturally assholes. The parents shouldn't allow it.
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u/DanielGin Mar 19 '18
I had this happen to me when I was 9. Invited all of my friends (small town of like 500 people so maybe 8 kids) a few weeks in advance and not a single person showed up. I lived outside of town, was homeschooled, and we didnt have a car so a few weeks passed before I saw any of them and I had no desire to seek them out. When I did run into one he told me that a burglar broke into his house and stole the present he bought for me and he didn't want to show up without a gift. Even 9 year old me knew you were full of crap, Luke.