Reply to Milestone birthday and almost no one remembered

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  I don't remind people about my birthday but I take my friends out for their birthday (just did that last week--took a friend our for a birthday brunch).  I invite them, choose the restaurant from one I know they like, and pay.  This has never been reciprocated which makes me sad.[/quote]

I’m the one who asked that question. For a variety of reasons, I was not exposed to friendships growing and didn’t have many. I’ve spent my adulthood trying to figure it out. In my experience, the people with the most love and community don’t bean count like you just did. They give what they are able to do based on their energy and emotion. I would never hear from them that they took someone to birthday lunch and the person didn’t reciprocate- even when it’s true! They remind me when it’s their birthday. Years they want parties, they throw their own.

So basically they put out love and get those bids reciprocated. But they are not upset that other people don’t first put out their own bid. They don’t get hung up on being forgotten or not remembered. They focus on their side of the street.[/quote]

+1 Very well-put. And, as someone in a similar boat - it's hard to learn this as an adult when you may have been brought up with 1) conditional love (e.g. "I did XYZ for you and automatically expected you to do ABC in return (even if I never said so explicitly)!" ) and 2) poor communication styles in the home.

It takes a lot of work to learn how to overcome this by vulnerably asking for what you need AND giving love freely without strings attached.

I remember a friend of mine in college confronted me one time and said, "It really hurts my feelings that you're not attending XYZ event I'm planning - I showed up for your play in the fall and was hoping you'd reciprocate by showing up for one of my events and it would mean a lot to me if you could." It literally blew my mind because she calmly and vulnerably explained her thinking on this. I still think about it and try use some of this language.[/quote]

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