Happy birthday to me?

EmilyClimbs — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:20:35 -0800

Is it weird to invite acquaintances/coworkers out for drinks after work to celebrate your own birthday? Is it a fairly accepted, normal thing to do, or is it likely to set off the "she's strange and/or desperate!" alarm bells? My birthday is coming up and I'd love to give myself the birthday present of getting together for drinks after work (it's a Friday) with a bunch of my coworkers. These are folks I really like spending time with and am hoping/trying to become friends with, who are currently various places along the spectrum between "friendly acquaintances" and "casual/new friends," although all except a couple are much closer to the former than the latter. (Due to shyness and fear of rejection I haven't tried to make new friends in years and am left with no real friends in town except my boyfriend; I'm trying hard to turn over a new leaf and actively try to build friendships with some of these coworkers, but I've only been trying for a couple months, despite working here for several years.)

However, I'm not sure whether/how to do it. This is what I'm wondering:

1) Is it weird to invite people out to celebrate my own birthday? I'm afraid it'd look like I'm trying to get people to buy me drinks or something. Or even if it's not weird to do in and of itself, does it make it weird if it's people who aren't close friends but are just friendly coworkers/acquaintance-level folks? I don't want to come off as too desperate and needy because I'm worried that'll turn people off from being friends with me. (If it's helpful to know, I don't think I've ever heard about a birthday happy hour for other people at work, but I don't know if that means there never are any or just that I'm never invited. We do have general happy hours about once a month or so that I and the crowd I'm interested in typically attend. However, my birthday's only one week after one of them, so that might make people less likely to to come to mine.)
2) If I do this, how many people should I invite? I've been advised to invite everyone at work to events rather than a selected group-- but that doesn't seem right to me in this situation because first of all wouldn't it come off as awkward and strange to invite people to celebrate your birthday who you barely know? And secondly, not only would I rather spend the time with the folks I know and like the most, but a big reason for doing this would be to help build friendships by communicating to these people that I like them specifically, and am very open to any further attempts at friendship on their part. (I think this is not always clear because I'm often so shy and quiet.) So what do you think is most likely to accomplish my goals (helping me make friends while not coming off as strange) as far as numbers? I could pick the 4-5 I know best and am almost/casually friends with, expand that anywhere up to 12 people that I'm pretty friendly with, add on another 5 to 7 if I want to push the definition of "friendly acquaintance" to its limit, or just make it a blanket invite to my whole department (about 30 people) if that's the best move.

(Sorry if this all sounds silly, it probably ought to be pretty obvious to me. It's just that I've spent so much time without pursuing friendships that I don't really know what I'm doing-- I'm rusty and socially inexperienced, and then shy and anxious on top of that-- so now I want to push through my anxiety but I don't want to come off as awkward and needy and put people off. So I can use all the help I can get in figuring out what's typically viewed as relatively normal vs "strange and desperate"...)

True friends vs. acquaintances

Sharcho — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 08:33:56 -0800

What are the little things I should do to deepen relationships from the good acquaintance level to true friend level? Why did your best friends become your best friends? (BTW: I've read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie)

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Happy birthday to me?

True friends vs. acquaintances