Writer, tell the truth:
You feel obligated, or at least pressured, to write more than "happy birthday" on people's Facebook wall. Because you're a writer. And a writer can't write the same thing as a nonwriter. It's an insult to the recipient, who has a right to expect something more from a writer friend.
But goddamn, you can't be expected to write hundreds of original birthday greetings, quips, teases and natty notes every year, can you?
And a simple "happy birthday" is better than nothing, right?
Or is it?
I mean, for a lot of your Facebook friends, you're the only writer they know. And all they get from you is a lousy, "happy birthday"?
Say your favorite writer was one of your Facebook friends. Toni Morrison. George Saunders. John Irving. Say you're scrolling down all the birthday greetings, and Toni Morrison comes up.
You're excited! What will she say?
"Happy Birthday."
You'd be all like, thanks for nothing, Joyce Carol Oates! Norman Mailer could have done better than that, and he's dead.
I don't know, writer pals. Unless lightning strikes, I actually think we might be better off saying nothing at all.
What do you say?
Ernestly,
Hem
You nailed it, David. My other dread: the office birthday card when colleagues hang over your shoulder to see what clever words the scribe has to say.
I once nailed that one, Jan. It was a birthday card for a graphic designer. I wrote, “It doesn’t matter what I write here because you never fucking read the copy anyway.”
The DEEPEST DREAD comes when a dear friend gets married and you’re the only writer at the wedding and you’ve got to deliver the wedding toast. I have a FEW of those nightmares to tell about, if I can bring myself to remember them.
Sometimes it’s a toss-up between available time and heartfelt sentiment. If the former is pressing, then “happy birthday” it is. I keep clinging to the notion that, once I retire (should that day truly arrive), I will spend an hour or two each day reviving the lost art of the handwritten letter. I’m so over email, and though I am grateful for FB for staying connected, it’s superficial. So beware the possibility that retirement becomes reality, Davey! You may be cursing my quill. Of course, among your acquaintance, I have the least claim on the writer’s art. But one can dream.
Joan, I’ll look forward to exchanging letters with you in our dotage. Our children will then publish our correspondence as part of a revival of epistolary literature, and they’ll be rich and we’ll live on forever, in letters.