h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mine was on my 21st when a brother and a cousin, and most of my mates were arrested. I ended up having to celebrate with work colleagues instead.

Although I was lucky that I hadn't left work early, or I could have spent it in a police cell.

Anyons have a worse birthday?

The one next week, cos it's my twenty-tenth and I can't work out how I got there as I'm sure I'm still 25!

My 20th was on september 10th last year, and we arranged an all day drinking session the following day, which naturally became a bit morose when the pub TVs were showing the news updates.

Not as dramatic, perhas....

I spent the evening of my 21st birthday writing an essay. I had planned to go drinking with some other members of the fencing club, partly to celebrate my birthday, but mostly because it was the end of the first bit of the season and we'd done quite well.

But the last match was cancelled a week beforehand, and it all got rather forgotten. Or almost completely forgotten. I'm not over-fond of birthdays anyway....

Otto

Aclose tie between my 18 and 21 birthdays.
on my 18th birthdday I spent the day, without the help of a single alcoholic drink being sick down the toilet, and I was suffering from rather severe headaches as a consequence of water on the brain (hydrokethalisis) however its spelt good news I recovered completely from the headaches and sickness and water on the brian stuff but missed my 18th birtday completely. Friends were at the pub on the night, and somehow a rumour had started that I had been taken into hospital again/was dead, which I don't think I was well I'm not dead as far as I can tell My 21th birthday was spent during the day traveling on the train, to reach home, where I spent the entire night writting up assignments for University and never made it to the pub or had a single drink or anything :- my computer at University had gone kaplunk and I had traveled to my farthers to use the ancient computer there which worked My 25th was pretty naff, spent the evening in, and recieved only one birthday card Oh well, I say make up for it with the other three hundred and whatever days are left in the year actually, Its my unbirthday this Friday

Well Diana died on my 18th birthday so I spent the day surrounded by people looking miserable and saying "I just cant beleive it *sob*" everywhere was closed and noone wanted to go out drinking so I went shopping and got even more depressed.

I spent my 21st in a car driving from liverpool to bournemouth, however the day before Id had a surprise day out at alton towers with all my family (unfortunately my old friends got things mixed up and managed to go to alton towers the day before kind of ruined the surprise a bit) my sister got a migraine and spent the afternoon sat in the shade but apart from that it was ok.

I've never been a big fan of birthdays

I'm seeing a recurring theme of those late teens/early 20s birthdays being generally not much fun for some people.

Well for people like me there's not much to choose from other than teens and early 20s, as I appear to have forgotten everything earlier.

Ahh but I'm only 23 and as I say I'm not a great fan of birthdays (I've spent the last two at the Great Dorset Steam Fair...exciting!!!) I can't remember my 20th or my 19th...and I can't remember any before my 18th...I was just never that fussed - and I'm still not.

Christmas is my birthday/christmas/new year all in one - I couldn't care less about the other days of the yr christmas is when I celebrate time passing and look forward to the next year.

My birthday often falls on a bank holiday so I'll do something different but more because of the extra day off than the fact that its my birthday. I'm not overfussed about getting presents - its nice but it isn't everything and to be honest I feel like a lot of the people who buy me presents don't really know me that well (or at least looking at the presents they dont). The money I got for my birthday this yr went on some new trousers for work and fixing the exhaust on my car (I realise this makes me sound like a sad muppet).

I like peoples company and if I see people who I don't see often because it is my birthday then great - Id rather spend the day at a Steam Fair with my dad than get a cheque for £100...but then I'd rather spend a day out with my dad regardless of the day

So far as I'm concerned its just another day...I remember my 18th because at the moment the press dont want me to forget it, I remember my 21st because your supposed to , I probably had worse birthdays when I was a child but I dont remember them. Id say people remember landmark birthdays as being pants because you're supposed to remember them.

I see a pattern emerging here...

Mine was *also* my 21st . I was really looking forward to it because it fell on a Sunday - yay no work! Then the job that I was helping on overan and I was told that I would have to go to an office in Windsor to finish it off...on Sunday.

I was totally cheesed off already but then the train was late, I couldn't find the office and then when I did find it nobody came to the door when I rang. I stood outside for 35 minutes before someone came out to have a ciggie and saw me there (this was the days before mobiles so I couldn't even ring to get them to come and let me in).

At about 1 o'clock someone came into the room I was working in and said that they were all going to lunch and did I want anything bought back! They didn't even ask if I wanted to go with. So I sat there for nearly 2 hours in a strange office, on my own, getting on with my work. When they came back they had all been drinking and had forgotten to bring any lunch back for me. By this time I was feeling so sorry for myself I went to the loo for a little .

When I came back they said that I hadn't done as much as they thought I should have and that I may have to work longer than originally planned. I was in no mood for that so I told them that I had plans. They said that they didn't care and that I was being employed to do a job so I had to stay and do it. I eventually left at 6.30pm.

My day was totally ruined and when my Mum and Dad took me out for the meal they had planned for me (only 2 hours late) I reluctantly went but fell asleep at the table.

The next day at work I got a huge bunch of flowers from them. Someone back in my office had told them that it had been my 21st and they felt really guilty. Too late though - I'll never forget it.

well I'm only 21, and due to four long years of pumping alcohol and herbal remedies into my body, I appear to have forgotten about half my life. Ah well, the other half was fun

But trying to have a quality birthday piss-up while one of the biggest terrorist attacks of all time is being replayed on the Pub TVs is a bit soul-sapping.

My 20th was spent sat in a rusty steel box with no airconditioning, in an office full of radios that kept breaking down coz they didn't like working in temperatures approaching 50°C (neither did I for that matter!) floating somewhere in the middle of the Persian Gulf, wondering what the heck I was doing there, why all these nice arab Gentlemen were out to get me and isn't it more sensible to run away from high explosive mines that people have just left lying around the place rather than actually going looking for them?

After that - as the song goes: Things could only get better!

On my 21st, I moved house, discovered the new place had a cockroach problem and a power cut and slept on the floor at a friend's place.

My worst birthday must have been the very one I was born on. Would that be my zeroest? Well, my original birtday anyways.

I popped out of the cozy warmth into a blindingly bright hospital room six weeks early, the umbilical cord tightly around my neck... Nothing ever beat that, so far...

Yelbakk

The worst I can remember was my 10th (I think) when my dastardly brother accidentally knocked a whole cupful of Persil Automatic into the birthday cake we were making for me

I got over it

The only birthday I truly didn't enjoy because of my age was my 22nd because I though I was getting old. Seems utterly ridiculous now since I'm 10 years older now and feeling like a much more rounded person.

(BTW, Ictoan On my 30th someone asked me "How old are you then? Twenty what?" So I replied "Twenty ten! " Great minds... )

I suppose my worst was the most recent one, #23. I had no one around to celebrate with since I recently moved and don't have any friends in the area. I didn't get drunk because I don't drink alone. I didn't get myself a cake because eating it by myself would have reminded me how alone I was. The next day, I was so depressed that I wrote a pretty lengthy journal entry on the subject. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F46130?thread=213185&latest=1 Wampus

Methinks it's having hopes/expectations of a great day & then being let down is the main factor in not enjoying birthdays. I reckon birthdays are somewhat over-rated like Christmas & other special days.

I don't generally like surprises, but I was disappointed on my 40th that nobody did anything special at all. Except one of my sons made me a cardboard badge!
Other than that I spent my 8th (I think) having mumps in bed, party cancelled.
My 18th party I was so nervous/excited I spent most of it in the kitchen feeling ill.

Birthdays are strange things. If it's your birthday, then it's your day. But western culture (perhaps more so in the UK than elsewhere) generally says that it's not the done thing to want to be the centre of attention. Attention and, dare I say it, love, are things that are not to be asked for, but to be earned. People who are genuinely quite confident have no trouble with this, because they know that they are held in high regard, but those who aren't so confident find this quite difficult.

If you've been living in the same place with the same or similar friends for a long time, and you have a culture of celebrating birthdays, then yours is an annual event on the calendar and you need do no more. If your friendship group doesn't have a culture of celebrating birthdays (my schoolfriends didn't much, because we were all skint), or doesn't have a long enough history (true for most students), then people might not remember, or may never have known.

All of them.

What is it with 21st birthdays? I spent mine with my leg in plaster, having broken my ankle ten days earlier. Cue lots of tedious jokes about being plastered and legless.

And of course, Douglas Adams died on my 29th...