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It's My Birthday, Too
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 email Michael Z.
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There's an epidemic running through the youth of Athens, and I'm taking it upon myself to put an end to it.
Evidently, once a year people feel the need to celebrate the fact that they're alive. Why they cling to a specific day of the calendar I will leave to traditional inertia.
But why they choose to celebrate that date by guilting their friends into congregating in watering holes on the island of Manhattan, is an unforgivable transgression.
Yes, I am talking about the birthday part at the Manhattan bar.
And I'm going to vent.
A birthday is a celebration, presumably, about one's life. Which is fine. Life is kind of fun sometimes. And people like to be surrounded by their so-called friends on this special day, which is cool, too.
Friends should, more or less, be there for their friend’s birthday parties. I guess. I go to my friends’ birthday parties all the time.
And therefore, in so far that a birthday celebration is also an obligation to one's friends to attend said birthday party, it is incumbent upon the birthday celebrator that they respect their friend's time and produce for them a night more meaningful than celebrating their existence.
Your friends have to be there to be good people—you should respect that they showed up just to make you feel good about yourself and do something nice for them.
That’s why throwing one's birthday party in a bar in Manhattan is, at best, selfish, and at worst, a depressing lack of imagination.
To think that dragging your friends to an over-hyped, over priced, self-absorbed venue is the best use of their time, is, in my humble opinion, obnoxious.
So what are your options?
I'll give you a few examples of birthday parties done right.
Respect: Give me chicken!
This example happened on a Friday night, ordinarily enough, but instead of choosing a bar in Manhattan--home of the most conceited watering holes on the planet--the party happened in a Korean fried chicken pad off of K-town.
I had never been to a place that served platter after platter of spicy Korean buffalo wings. They were delicious, bountiful, and most importantly, to honor his friends for showing up for his birthday, my friend paid for all the chicken himself.
That's respect.
Of course, we covered our own alcohol, which piled up fast, because, after all, you can't eat Korean fried chicken without Korean liquor and Korean beer. The night lasted long, it introduced me to a new food and venue, and my friend honored his friends for being there for him.
Low Key: Go Brooklyn!
If you insist on having your birthday party in a bar, then at least have the common decency to locate that bar in an outer borough.
That way, your friends will neither think you're pretentious, nor need to be pretentious, to enjoy your company.
Bars in Brooklyn may not always be the cleanest or the neatest, but what they lack in janitorial man-power they more than make up for in old world charm.
Would you really rather gawk at the Sputnik-esque interiors of some more "modern" bars, or enjoy the charm of free pizza with every beer?
Surgeon General's Notice: An adequate substitute to Brooklyn Bars in your diet may be Queens Houkah or Karoake dives.
Queen is still refreshingly low on hipsters--and their preferred places of debauchery--but it's overwhelming in its ethnic outposts.
Want a place that's inspired by an Irish pub? Go Lower East Side. Want a real Irish pub? Go Woodside.
There's No Place Like Home
All this talk about where to go out for someone's birthday forgets the fact that one need not go out at all.
A birthday party can be perfectly reasonable in the privacy of one's own home/apartment.
Here are some general guidelines: if the party doesn't involve dancing and loud music, then it should start earlier, rather than later.
If it's a weekend party, people will want to bust a move, so if you can't provide that, start early and make it more of a dinner sort of thing.
A Call to Action
Youth of New York! If we band together, we can overcome this crisis. Be sure in your resolve.
I urge you all to take the time to come up with a birthday celebration of imagination and respect for your friends.
I'm sure you'll come up with something great. After all, you'll have a whole year to think about it.
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