Why I Want a Surprise Birthday Party

I’ve always wanted a surprise party on my birthday. It’s such a great feeling to walk into a house, maybe after a rotten day, and come into a room full of people who love you. And – the most important part – you didn’t have to work out the logistics. 

Till date, I haven’t ever had one thrown for me. And the sad part is – as a friend of mine just pointed out – it’s a little daunting to organize one. I have a vast social circle filled with people whom I would love to meet, but just about maybe 5 people who are people I consider myself close to. These 5 people mostly don’t get along with each other so there’s no small committee of people who can get together and make a guest-list of everyone I know, and people they’re certain I would like to meet.

The unfortunate truth is – a surprise party needs a bestie and I don’t think I have one. There are a few people who come close, but the bestie who knows all your friends, all your family members, knows history and the emotional minefields, the one who has the contact numbers of atleast 17 of the significants in my life… that essential ingredient to a surprise party is missing from my life.

And I’ve had a lot to do with that. By nature, I’m a person who compartmentalizes my life. There are writing friends, the creative bunch, media buddies, drinking buddies, semi-strangers-with-a-connect, business-partners-who-are-friends, ex-FWBs-lovers-boyfriends, school buddies, college buddies, dead-bestie’s-social-circle, etc . And this lot is just a broad-stroke categorization. Within each group, there are several distinctions. (Looking at this list, I can see why I need to compartmentalize – I’ll just go cuckoo otherwise!) Each circle of friends caters to a different facet of my personality but every time any two of these circles have collided, I’m always surprised to realize that one group doesn’t usually get along with the other. It’s like my internal war brought out into the open with equally pitted players fighting for space.  It’s a metaphorical massacre.

That’s why a surprise party is so important. It’s not just that by some miracle, I’ll have all my favorite people in the room together, but that there would be someone who would get all my different people, and thus, in a way, finally get me.