10 Years of Birthday Posts

I first started tracking my birthday facebook posts in 2011 due to a fluke. I was two years out of college and had moved across the country. Many of my facebook friends were from college and I was no longer seeing them regularly and I was starting to realize how much smaller my social circle was as a young professional in semi-rural Washington state than it was in Ann Arbor. Then my birthday rolled around and almost no one wished me a happy birthday on facebook (except my family) which only confirmed my suspicion that I went from being someone with lots of friends to someone with no friends.

What I didn't know when I created the initial post about how I was a friendless loser, was that I had inadvertently hidden my birthday on Facebook. The following year I was in DC for my birthday, and although I had gone out for drinks with some people from work, I found myself alone that evening and decided to blog about my birthday, but I didn't even include a chart that year (but that was the year that I started tracking my first non-FB post stat - Mr. Ray). What I failed to mention is that my numbers rebounded back to my average from college. Year three is when things really solidified into place for the annual birthday post tradition.

Year 5 was a big year. It's the first year I started tracking some of numbers-behind-the-numbers (total facebook friends, fartface, and double Rachel Morgans). In year 6 I started adding non-facebook messages received to the chart going back to 2014. Year 7 was my thirtieth birthday, so I added my total number of facebook friends line to the chart. Year 8 was bittersweet getting the coveted Double Rachel Morgan, but for the first (and last) time since meeting her I didn't get called a fartface by my friend Beth. Last year was year 9, and I totally revamped my chart for optimal tracking.

It's been a wild ride. So now here we are in 2020, my 10th birthday post and 15 years worth of facebook happy birthday data:

For those who may not remember:

- My friend Beth normally wishes me happy birthday fartface so there is an icon for that. 
- My goal of getting both former Rachel Morgans to wish me a happy birthday fell one Rachel Morgan short. A full Rachel Morgan meter is a very rare feat. Perhaps in 2021.
-Ray Smith is a guy who facebook friended my after we had a 20 minute conversation in 2008. He then wished my a happy birthday pretty regularly until he suddenly ceased in 2017. Since he was the first thing I really tracked I feel obligated to put him on the chart. I tried to use his face for the icon, but he has deleted his facebook account, which likely means no more happy birthday messages from Ray. So without his picture I was forced to use that of Ray Smith the Welsh actor who played the tough-talking police chief, Detective Superintendent Gordon Spikings from the British television series Dempsey and Makepeace.

As for the analysis, I'll keep it brief. My numbers are up this year, and the 6 year decline has ceased. I'm back at 2018 numbers. It's still a long ways to go, but my group texts continue to be a growth area for me.

Thank you for joining me on this journey of self-absorption and pettiness. I guess I'll keep on doing this every year until either I die or facebook ceases to exist.