Nina: [00:00:00] I meandered a bit on this episode beyond the challenge. And I think we might need to have future episodes on this. We need to cover gifts, we need to cover how other people are doing parties. Obviously I have feelings about it. Clearly that’s coming out in this episode.

Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I’m Nina Badzin, your host. I’ve been writing about friendship for over 10 years. You are here for the April Challenge. I hope that’s what you’re here for because that’s what you are getting. I’m excited to talk to you about it because it’s something that’s been in my mind for a long time and it’s about birthdays, it’s about your friends’ birthdays. It’s also about social media.

I’m tackling both of those issues at once. In this short episode, you’re gonna get a lot packed into a short amount of time, which is something I do try to promise.

Let’s do a quick review of what the challenges have been so far in 2025. In January, we talked about seeing a friend in person. It doesn’t matter where they lived, whether it was a [00:01:00] long distance friend or somebody who lives in town. But the direction was that sometime by the end of January to see a friend in person. In February, it was to start a ritual or tradition with one friend or more. also could have been in person, out of town people. And it didn’t mean that the tradition or ritual began in February, but the discussion began in February. And in March it was a hyperlocal connection. A lot of my episodes in March really had to do with the neighborhood and your really hyperlocal friends, not the friends who even live a 30 minute drive. I’m talking a one minute walk in your building, in your neighborhood.

And the challenge was to focus on those friends who live close, or they might be acquaintances still. That was kind of the idea is maybe they are acquaintances still and you’re hoping to have some more friends who live in walking distance. I actually did something a little bigger for that . I planned with three or four friends who live really close in my neighborhood a cooking class.

Nina: And I had a friend of mine who lives in a different neighborhood, about 20 minutes away, come and teach us how to make some of my [00:02:00] favorite things that I’ve eaten at her house.

Now we are onto April. April is very simple. I actually think this is the easiest challenge I’ve had so far because starting a ritual tradition or asking someone to walk who you barely know in the neighborhood or seeing a friend in person who you’ve had a really hard time scheduling with. Scheduling is the number one impediment to friendship. All of those are a little harder. You will love the simplicity of April, which is to write down your friend’s birthdays in your calendar. That’s it. If you have a paper calendar, then you’re gonna write them in for the entire year. Then you will probably have to do that every year. if you have a digital calendar like I do, then you can set it as a recurring event and just do it once.

Why should you have your friends’ birthdays in your calendar and not just rely on social media? That’s the implied part, but now I am saying it out loud. There is definitely energy I see everywhere now around moving away from social media, and I think that is a positive thing. And it’s sometimes I’m hesitant to talk about it because number [00:03:00] one, I do use social media a lot just personally.

Number two. I also use it to promote this show and to promote my newsletter and other things I do like help people with their podcast. I just started a new thing, uh, called Friendship Strategy Sessions. I will talk to you about your friendships for up to three sessions. I won’t do more than three ’cause I’m not a therapist and I explain all that in the form about it.

If you’re interested, you can get in touch with me. That’s in the show notes. But how do people know about that stuff other than me talking about it on the show? How do they know about the show even without social media? My whole writing career, that started in about 2009. would not have existed without social media.

Those were early days and I wasn’t on social media quite as much, of course. ’cause the atmosphere was different. We didn’t do things like that. by the way, I wrote a lot more.

There’s no question that there is a correlation there between how much time we are on our phones and we are on different social media sites and how much other stuff we are able to get done. There’s only 24 hours in a [00:04:00] day.

So birthdays. One of the things that people feel they need, particularly Facebook for, are to know your friend’s birthdays.

I have been thinking about how sometimes the opposite is true. Social media, facebook in particular, reminds us that we are really connected to a lot of people we don’t know, the birthdays are the reminder. Does this happen to you?

You log onto Facebook and you see it’s so-and-so’s birthday, and you kind of go, why am I friends with this person? Not ’cause I don’t like them. It’s actually larger than that. I don’t know them. Now, that might be because in the heyday of my blogging life, I connected with people on Facebook.

I mean, I tried to only connect with people I knew, but there were times it was looser and maybe if we had a few friends in common, I would, accept the friend request, and that would mean that we are mutually friends on Facebook. Okay, well then their birthday comes along 12 years later and I’m like, who is that?

I have no doubt they’re having the same reaction when my birthday comes along in December. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people who are like, who’s that person? And then neither of us wants [00:05:00] to undo the Facebook connection because it’s like, well, what if one of us is forgetting?

Am I the only one that this happens to? I can’t imagine that I am. This is the nature of social media in 2025. We are connected to all these people and sometimes we don’t know why. of course there could be people you’re connected to that you were friends with, acquaintances or actually friends and you’re really not anymore.

And then that birthday comes along and it’s like, what do you do about that? You don’t need to write down everyone’s birthday in your calendar. I want you to write down your friends’ birthdays. Your friends. One step further, you could write down people you really like a lot, your acquaintances.

You live in the neighborhood. You maybe have places you run into each other, the gym, a school, an office, some community organization, and you like them. You like them enough that you’d like to wish them a happy birthday.

Here’s another challenge. Within the challenge. I challenge you to not feel that that is weird ‘ cause maybe it isn’t your closest, closest friends, but it would still be a lovely gesture, wouldn’t it?

. Maybe you don’t call. [00:06:00] I could see that calling someone that you don’t know that well on their birthday might feel a little extra as they say.

I think you could text somebody who you just really like and respect. You can just say, I know it’s your birthday and I wanted to make sure you’re having a great day thinking of you.

It doesn’t have to be a big, long note about how you’ve admired them over the years if they’re not someone you know that well.

So I’ve issued a few challenges here. Let’s review. You’re going to, first of all seek out your friend’s birthdays ‘ cause you might not know them. You may know your friend has a birthday, vaguely in April or January or whenever.

But you don’t know the exact day ’cause you’ve been relying on social media or you’ve been relying on a group text that tells you. a lot of us are in that position and I include myself. That’s why I’m doing this challenge. By the way. Almost every challenge I do is also for me, I’m right there with you.

So number one is to seek out your friend’s birthdays. It may be on Facebook that you look, or you may just ask them, Hey, I’m getting organized for the year. When’s your birthday? I’m gonna put it in my calendar and I’m just gonna have it forever. Maybe they’ll say, great idea. When’s your birthday? What a wonderful outcome.

Number two is then you have to make a decision about is there a [00:07:00] next layer of friendship that you wanna put in your calendar? and if you’re not going to leave social media, which is fine, I’m not telling you to, I’m not leaving it.

If you are someone who’s going to stay on it, Perhaps social media is the place that you do for that, you know, third, fourth tier in your life.

my guest Seth Kaplan from episode 1 38, we talked about neighborhoods. He calls that the middle ring friendships, uh, people that you see throughout life.

But it would not be weird for you not to have their birthday in your calendar. perhaps Facebook is the place for that. Number three is the bigger one is do something about it. And then do something about it is what you have to make a decision about.

Is this someone you’re gonna call? Is this someone you’re going to text? I know a lot of people do not like phone calls, especially on their birthday because they don’t wanna spend their whole day on the phone. That’s okay. Leave a message. say something nice to your friend on the birthday

on a voicemail or text. I still text close friends on their birthday. I might leave a message, but then I might send a more thoughtful text because I suspect they’re [00:08:00] not going to listen to their messages. I mean, you know, your friends. If your friend never listens to voicemail, leave the message so that your friend can hear your voice, and that person will know you made an effort. But if you really want a beautiful message to come across, write it in a text. You could send a card, you could send a snail mail card. You have to have thought about that a week before, but you certainly can do that.

It’s a really nice thing to do too.

In some ways it’s a lot easier than the other challenges because it’s completely in your control. You don’t have to rely on somebody else answering your text.

You know, like the other ones about seeing the friend and making a plan or a ritual and getting to know a hyper-local friend kind of depends on the other person being open to what you’re offering. this one is all in your hands.

Nina: There is another piece of the birthday puzzle when it comes to friendship, and this is not really part of the challenge. Okay.

But I have a few more things I wanna talk about. Birthdays can be touchy. Some people say, oh, I don’t care about my birthday, that might be okay for you. Maybe you don’t care about your birthday, but you should not assume that your friends don’t care about their birthdays. And don’t make people feel bad for caring about their [00:09:00] birthday.

It is the one day that we have to invite nice communication. It is the one day you have to hear from people who love you and like you. They can tell you how much they love you and like you, and then that day exists for them and you can do the same. It’s really a nice tradition. I don’t see any downside of connecting with somebody that you really like or have some closeness to, to let them know how much you appreciate them.

And it’s great to have the reminder, the excuse to do it. It’s much harder to just do it outta nowhere.

But what about the big birthdays and the parties and having nights out for birthdays. There’s a lot of bad feelings.

I hear about them a lot in the anonymous letters I get about birthdays.

Birthdays touch a lot of emotions. You feel that you have no one to invite perhaps if you were going to have a 40th birthday of 50th, a 30th, a 60th, the 70th. The round numbers seem to really bring out these feelings.

from everything you’ve seen on, again, social [00:10:00] media or tv you feel like everyone’s having these special outings and you’re not having one.

I was raised that you plan your own birthday. I have never waited for anyone to do anything for my birthday.

My mom really taught me that. My mom threw her own parties.

She just had her 80th birthday, so this is very pertinent. My mom’s lived in Chicago for maybe 60 years now.

she’s had a lot of the same friends for a long time. I’ve known them my whole life. I’m in my late forties. There were some new women there. I live in Minneapolis, just in case this is your first episode. I grew up in Chicago. I live in Minneapolis, but my mom still lives in Chicago. My dad unfortunately passed away about three years ago. They had a lot of friends and my mom has a lot of friends.

There were women at my mom’s 80th birthday that I had never met. What a wonderful example to live with. This isn’t about making new friends. I’ve had a million episodes about that, and you can find them for sure in my catalog of episodes.

I’m talking just about birthdays and the feelings that they bring up. I like my mom’s way of you plan [00:11:00] your birthday. I know that there are friends out there who, everyone throws each other parties.

that’s very nice. You would spend your whole life planning parties, I guess, if you have a lot of friends, which would be a blessing in some way, but also a lot of responsibility. I have four kids and so maybe that’s part of why I am not terribly in love with the idea of friends planning all their friends’ birthdays because oh my gosh, like I need a break. I need a break from planning birthdays and thinking about birthdays. I actually appreciate that my mom plans her own birthday. She doesn’t expect that her children are going to plan her birthday.

She just does it. She does it where she wants. She has who she wants. She serves what she wants. I love that. I love when other people plan their own birthdays because I think it is a lot of pressure to put on your friends to plan your birthday. And then there’s a lot of comparison that could happen. And I hear about that in the letters too. And I see it in my real life. I’ve experienced it. Oh, they did such and such for this person. But you know, I had to plan my own, or they went all out on a gift for that one. But didn’t do a gift for this [00:12:00] one.

There are feelings about parties and gifts. Gifts is kind of like a separate thing. Do you give gifts? Do you not give gifts? Do you only give gifts for the big birthdays?

Nina: these are all the different issues that come up. I don’t have a solution to all of them. My solution on making sure your birthday is celebrated is that you plan it. I don’t have a solution to when there’s friend groups and some people do more for one than the other. That is just how it goes.

Friend groups are hard. Things are not all, even all the time, and that’s grown up life. I have plenty of episodes to address, you know, feelings of unequal uh, a lack of reciprocity. Things that feel one sided. I would say a good chunk of the anonymous letters I answer on my substack, dear nina.substack.com, kind of come down to that core issue of feeling a lack of reciprocity.

Write to me if you have more thoughts about birthdays. I have an anonymous form that will be in the show notes where you can write to me. I truly will not know it’s you.

And if you want me to know it’s you, you can go ahead and put your email address in, [00:13:00] but you don’t have to, and you don’t have to make up a fake email address. So that will be in the show notes. It will say, write to me. It may say, ask me an anonymous question. I might have worded it that way, but it’s the same form, so just click on it and you can write to me. And you can always send me an email if you would like at nina badzin@gmail.com, you’re always invited to write to me.

I called this podcast Dear Nina, conversations about friendship for a reason. It’s because I like it to be a conversation and I like people to share with their friends and talk amongst yourselves. How do your friends do birthdays? Let me know. I I am very. Curious.

So I meandered a bit on this episode beyond the challenge. And I think we might need to have future episodes on this. We need to cover gifts, we need to cover how other people are doing parties. Obviously I have feelings about it. Clearly that’s coming out in this episode.

In conclusion this month, find out when your friend’s birthdays are, put ’em in a calendar and reach out to your friends on their birthday. That is the simple part of this episode. And it’s is somewhat time consuming. Like maybe it’s gonna [00:14:00] take you an hour to, to get all these birthdays in your calendar.

I guess it depends how many friends you have, but I mean, to find out their date to put it in. Then throughout the year you’re gonna reach out to your friends. So get to it. I can’t wait to hear about it. I will see you back next week with a regular interview.

When our friendships are going well, we are happier all around and the more I do this work, the more I believe it. Have a great week.