Generic Birthday Greetings are Driving Me Crazy

On the first day of every month a very good friend of mine emails a birthday list to all of the guys from our college fraternity. This month seven brothers of Kappa Phi will celebrate their birthdays. While the Rutgers University based fraternity didn’t survive the turbulent years that followed the sixties, a lot of friendships have endured and many are very strong.
Now I think it’s nice for Mike that he sends this list around but I am not enamored by the way some of the brothers use it. Let me explain. Since our frat days, my friend Paul and I have called each other on our birthdays. While Paul stayed put, building a business in Manhattan, I moved around a bit. Still, whether I was living in tiny Palmyra, New Jersey, Webster, New York (where life is worth living according to the natives) or my current home in Franklin, Tennessee, Paul always called. Paul is one of the July birthdays so when his day comes I will no doubt give him a call. Our conversations are lively, personal, and great fun. We catch up on what is happening in our lives now and indulge ourselves by retelling a story or two from the days when we were carefree college students. (If you’re reading this Paul, I did not steal the delicious London broil sandwich your mother made.) Over the years I added to the list of people I called as did Paul. And a funny thing happened after about 25 years of calling these guys. They started remembering my birthday and calling me: More terrific conversations to enjoy. If you can’t be sipping a tall one in the same pub together, hearing a good friend’s voice is the next best thing. Reading a Times New Roman font size 12 greeting is a pale comparison.
Enter the Internet age and email. I’m afraid some people are overcome with the easiness of typing out a few words and letting it go at that. Sadly, as far as I know, Microsoft has yet to figure out how to deliver the nuance that each person’s unique pitch and voice tone can deliver. And until they do we will keep calling. I hope it never stops.
Since Mike started sending his monthly blast email birthday list, my inbox has been choked by messages from a growing number of well wishers. Some recipients of Mike’s message reply to all with alacrity. Since my birthday is in January none of these guys are wishing me anything. They are just letting me know they are wishing someone else a Happy Birthday. How nice. Couldn’t they at least send an e-card to the birthday boys?
I am at a loss to understand how a generic “Happy Birthday to all the guys that have a birthday this month” is meaningful. If it makes sense to do that, why not send birthday greetings on January1st every year? “Happy Birthday to everyone I ever met” should do the trick.
The guys I went to school with always seemed bright to me. They did go to Rutgers after all, a great school that in those days was often thought to be an Ivy League university. Admittedly it wasn’t because of the academic standards, but we did play some of the Ivy’s in football every year. People seeing me in my Rutgers sweatshirt would ask, “Rutgers! Is that an Ivy League school? My answer never varied. “Almost,” I said.
But I digress. I’m annoyed by these unwanted email intrusions. Is it possible that the guys who send these vapid greetings want credit for acknowledging birthdays? Why else would Rollo, Tony and Al, not to mention Mark, feel the need to copy me and 50 other guys? These guys have been successful in life by any measurement you can name. It can’t be that they are lazy. It might be Mike’s fault for sending out the list but I hesitate to blame him. He might delete me from the group.
Listen, I do hope that every brother in the fraternity has a very happy birthday and many more of them too. But if I feel the need to tell them that I’ll call each one personally and say so. What I want more than anything for my birthday next year is this: Stop clicking “Reply to All” and send something meaningful to each birthday brother individually on the anniversary of his actual date of birth. Better yet call them. I’m sure every brother has the roster Mike sends with changes every three or four days.

Copyright Len Serafino, 2010. All rights reserved.