Like we don't have enough to feel guilty about in any given day - you know, things like am I too strict with the kids, am I too lenient, have I been a good wife, daughter, sister, aunt & friend?
Did I wave enthusiastically enough at that school mum at the shops and should I have baked those cupcakes for school rather than brought them?
I should have gone for a walk. I shouldn't have eaten that chocolate. I should have more alcohol free days a week and I shouldn't spend so much money on stuff.
And that's just today's guilt trip
You get the idea.
Now I am going to go and throw yet another thing into the mix that I find myself feeling guilty about.... missing birthdays. More specifically missing birthdays despite the fact that Facebook has literally waved a big fat reminder in front of my face.
Yep, if is wasn't bad enough that I suck at returning phone calls or responding to messages from friends - now I feel guilty for missing a friend's birthdays on Facie too!
Every second week an email from Facebook lands in my inbox and it's all "Hey Sonia, for your convenience, here's a whole list of people who's birthdays you will most likely forget over the next two weeks. We hope this list ensures you feel really bad about forgetting these birthdays, even though some of these friends are people you haven't actually seen since you sat next to them in roll call 30 years ago and they probably couldn't give a rat's bum if you remembered to wish them a happy birthday or not".
Alright so, maybe that's not exactly what it says, but in my opinion, my generalisation is fairly accurate.
So what is with that? Why is Facebook throwing yet another guilt log into the already roaring pit.
Many years ago I forgot my best friend's 21st birthday. I know right - suck much?
No, wait, please don't answer that - it took me years to recover from that guilt trip, I can't go there again.
I remembered the day after her birthday and I recall that awful wave of guilt that makes you feel like you want to throw up because you feel that bad! And so I booked a clowngram to go to her workplace and deliver a massive bouquet of balloons and basically just make a big fuss and embarrass the hell out of her in front of her colleagues.
So now you are probably thinking "ohhh what a sweet thing to do, what a lovely way to make up for forgetting a birthday".
Hold that thought, because you may choke on your words when I tell you that I then made out like I hadn't forgotten her birthday at all, just that I was really busy and the clown had got the booking wrong and turned up a day late.
I blamed it ALL on the poor clown.
The thing is, I forgot her birthday for a number of reasons; 1. I was probably too preoccupied with Melrose Place and 90210 or something equally lame when I got home from work that day. 2. I was once the most unorganised person on the planet and couldn't even remember what I had for breakfast let alone an actual birthday. 3. Facebook didn't remind me.
These days there is no Melrose Place and 90210 to distract me, I am more organised than ever before and Facebook sends me a freaking reminder... and yet I still forget!
I dutifully print off the birthday email Facie sends me, with all the best intentions of popping over to people's pages to wish them a happy birthday on their special day.
But then I don't, because nine times out of ten that piece of paper gets used for phone messages or shopping lists and so I just forget and then days later I go into my personal facebook newsfeed and I see all these message wishing such and such a happy birthday and I feel like a massive AHole.
I'm then faced with a choice - go ahead and wish them a Happy Belated Birthday even though by now they will most likely know that I didn't remember until I saw that everyone else had wished them a Happy Birthday in my newsfeed, or, I could say nothing and look like I don't care, even though I do care and am sitting there debating my dilemma whilst feeling like a king size lump of poo.
So thanks Facebook. Thanks for throwing me under the bus and highlighting what a forgetful twat I am to all my friends on Facebook.
Thanks for yet another guilt trip.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some belated birthday greetings to attend to.
How are you at remembering birthdays?
Do you rely on Facebook to remind you?
Do you feel guilty when you forget?