Every year my birthday rolls around, and old man becomes older man. Year in, year out.

It’s inevitable, just like my death, which will ironically enough be the end of my birthdays.

April Fools Day is also occurring once a year, and just like birthdays, it’s pretty much a loaf of bullshit.

Everyone posts some dumb shit on their Facebook, like

“I quit my job.”

Or,

“I’m a robot.”

Or, my personal favorite,

“Happy Birthday!”

Yes, “friends” it’s true, it’s not my birthday, but it is April Fools Day, and even though I’ve been running this stupid joke for three years, and even if I post on Facebook that it’s not my birthday, it still won’t stop the glorious notifications from rolling in.

Pictures of cakes.

Salutations.

Happy birthday’s by the hundreds.

It really makes me feel warm inside.

You guys care so much about me.

But on the other hand, it also makes me see what kind of strange dystopian world we live in, were so many people know each other so well, yet don’t know anything about them at all.

I mean, I know what you had for breakfast, and what time you went to bed, and I know what you look like in a bikini, sipping some lovely tropical drink, but I don’t know the most basic stuff about my Facebook friends, unless, of course they tell me.

And when Facebook tells me, I believe it.

I guess this is why so many people are depressed and lonely, even though the world is connected like never before.

It’s probably similar to the strange feeling of boredom we all feel sitting in front of the Internet, wondering what to look at next.

It’s not that we’ve seen it all, it’s just that we probably long for actual human reaction.

Physical, human contact.

In person.

Reality.

Not some weird box that distorts everything.

I bumped into a girl that I knew the other day. We stopped. Smiled at each other.

She said,

“How are you?”

I said,

“Great, and you? What have you been up to?”

She said,

“Well, just work, then I went back to France to see my family.”

After a few minutes I realized that not only did I not know this girl was French, and that I had no clue what her job was, I didn’t even know her name.

AT ALL.

I was just smiling, looking at a pretty girl, who’s pictures I had seen, possibly over and over and over and over again, but when she was right there in the flesh, I realized how far from friends we actually were.

Could she fill the shoes of the perfect being I had created in my head?

DOUBT IT.

Oh well, it’s still better than looking for Playboys in the woods behind the hospital.

Maybe she’ll wish me a happy birthday. I’d like that.