Birthdays are wonderful. The alternative to getting older, well.. isn’t so wonderful. It is also cool when you friends, business associates and clients (ie-people you actually know) remember it’s your birthday. I realize its not that hard to remember with all the computer software reminding you out there, but it is still a nice gesture.

What is plain weird, is when people who don’t know me send me an email to personally wish me a Happy Birthday. They may see my profile on Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo, or other social networking site and send me a birthday ecard or post something on my wall. While I appreciate the time they took to do this (or sometimes it takes no time at all- its automatic!) and their good intentions, its just plain crazy. In an unwired world, they would never know it’s my birthday. Many of these people, I have not talked to or emailed in years or ever talked to for that matter…It is especially nuts when Yahoo reminds me it’s my birthday. Services that I long forgot I signed up for send me a Happy Birthday card.

To remedy this, I think perhaps we need to establish two birthdays now…one that is our true birthday that we only celebrate with our friends and people who really know us. We then pick another date that we always wanted to celebrate our birthday on (like Feb 29th, and go ahead, pick a new year too!) and list that as our birthday on all of our extended social media network profiles for those “friends” to celebrate with us. This way, we can be remembered twice a year and your real birthday remains that much more special.