Helium balloons at a birthday party.

People have birthday parties. People who have “round number” birthdays tend to have especially large or elaborate parties. I will turn 40 this summer and I feel no need whatsoever to have a party. So if you don’t get invited, you shouldn’t feel left out.

My birthdays are fundamentally uninteresting to me to begin with. And having a birthday party does not appeal to me the least. First there would be all this arranging and preparing, and then all these people, and there more of them I invite the less I have time to speak to them. No, not for me.

I wouldn’t turn down a cake, though.