birthday coming up

Post Reply New Topic

Guys, I need some advice. My 21st birthday is coming up, and I don't know what I want to do for it. My friends have different interests. But I want to do something that doesn't involve hanging around with looney parents and an annoying sister. Do you guys have any advice?

Go out to a nice restaurant.

I took my own best advice, and this is what it was:

I hired a small bus from a company managed by a friend of mine. I arranged a timetable so it could pick up selected friends from the local villages around where I live, from work, and from the place where I work as a volunteer. A few ex-University friends came along, and they stayed at mine. Naturally the bus started from outside my front door.

I paid for the bus, so I supplied the music to be played on the stereo. The friend who ran the bus company ended up driving it himself, which meant he could socialise with us and also no-one would complain about the time we got back.

We collected everybody together and went down to Lewes (East Sussex), a wonderful little town and one of my favourite places. We then went on a leisurely pub crawl. It was wonderful to see all of my friends getting on, as I knew many of them from completely separate places so this was the first time they'd all met. People say much the same thing about weddings, I understand.

At closing time we rounded everybody up (well, except two - who eventually appeared, one sitting in a shopping trolley and the other pushing). The bus ride back featured some very rude sing-a-longs and a display of extreme air guitar skills. I recall one of the girls, Rachel, watching the drunken air guitar solos and saying to Sarah in mock 'chav' tones, "It makes yer praaad, dunnit?". Much amusement. The party continued in our mess room / social club, with people drinking Guinness and dancing on the table to old Madness songs until 2am. And then we all had a guaranteed ride home in the bus.

Now I appreciate I'm a fairly sociable Aspie, and it does depend on what your friends are like, and what you like yourself, but that WAS a top quality night.

Be warned that anything like this will need a fair amount of organising, though. I've just been writing on another thread about birthdays and the general feeling there is that it's best to shut yourself away and ignore all of the hype. These days I'm inclined to agree, cos I find communicating much more difficult than I used to. But if you have the willpower then go for it - come up with a party plan which is relaxed enough to allow everybody to enjoy themselves.

Someone usually takes me out to dinner.

See a movie, go out to eat, go to a bar, go shopping... it's your birthday so don't decide what to do based on what your friends want. Leave that to their own birthdays.