Birthday Asshole

My birthday is this Thursday (I know, I know, I'm excited too). I was planning to have some friends join me for dinner at one my favorite restaurants in the city. Most of the friends I invited bailed for one reason or another, which is lame, but I understand that some people have to work late or have things they can't miss and that some people are strapped for cash (apparently there is some issue with the economy or something. Fucking cheapskates). But in our group of friends we do that for birthdays. We all go out to eat somewhere nice. Not extremely fancy or crazy expensive, but somewhere fun and with good food. Today, after having almost none of the people I invited by email over a week ago respond, I wrote to the non-responders and they all said they couldn't make it. No one wrote back to say that they couldn't make it when the initial email went out a week ago though.

Today I was texting with one of my close friends about my plans for my birthday and about how we haven't seen one another in a couple of weeks. I told her I had been having a rough go at life lately, and have been kind of down in general (probably more on this at some point, long story). Then I jokingly ended one text by saying that everyone bailed on dinner (including her). She suggested I host a pot luck dinner at my apartment for the night. She wrote, "why don't we potluck at your place. I'm off all day Thursday, I'll prep your place and have it ready for when you get home... It's easy for everyone to meet and there is no financial pressure."

Actually not a bad idea. Which is what I wrote back and said I would get back and let her know what was going on.

And I'll be the first one to say that it was nice of her to offer to prep my place for it. I appreciate that for sure. But I have had an expectation of what I want to do that night for a few weeks - where I want to go and who I want to be there with me to celebrate.

Then I got this text back:

"And how do you say no to a potluck, that just makes you an asshole"

Wow.

Um, first of all, I didn't say no, I said it wasn't a bad idea. As in, that's a good idea. A fine job of idea-ing you've done there. And while the thought of cleaning my apartment before and after I have a bunch of people over sounds great and all, I honestly just didn't feel like planning a pot luck on a Monday night after a really long and very busy day at work. I didn't feel like putting effort into writing another email to all the people who never responded to the first one and see if they wanted to come to a pot luck. I needed to think about it. I needed to think about whether or not for my birthday I was willing to change what I have been expecting to do and looking forward to doing. Yes, I would rather see more of my friends that night. But a lot of people said they couldn't make it because of work or other unmissable miscellanea - she was actually the only one to say she was too poor to make it to dinner. I understand being too poor to make it to a dinner that might end up costing more money than you can afford to spend. I have been there. Fine, I get it, come have a drink afterwards then.

I really want to have dinner out somewhere. I haven't been out to eat at a nice place for a while and it's my fucking birthday. So what if I want to go out to eat and NOT sit in my apartment?

Second of all, now I'm an asshole?

Hey, thanks a lot for calling me an asshole right after I got done telling you I've had really rough couple of months. Thanks for letting me know that because you're broke and I have had an idea of what I want to do on my birthday for quite a while, that when I don't jump on the pot luck idea right away I'm an "asshole."

Awesome.

Thanks for making me feel better. Really, thanks for that one. On the day when all my close friends (pretty much, but not everyone) decide it's not worth it to go out to eat for my birthday, I find out that I'm an asshole for not doing what you want to do that night. You're really sweet, thanks.