Birthdays can be a wonderful celebration of life and friendship, but when a birthday goes bad, it feels deeply personal. A regular bad day you’ll probably forget, but a bad birthday will haunt your mind forever, becoming a symbol of your entire life. So when u/kaancanpinar asked, “Dear askreddit what’s the suckiest thing that happened on your birthday?” the commenters had a lot of stories ready to go.
Scroll below for all the stories that will make you appreciate the life you have and consider just eating a slice of cake over the sink this year.
1.
Got told my gf at the time wanted a break, then she went out and locked me out of my house and slept with the dude she saw when she was out in my own bed. It was my 20th birthday —downundah666
2.
My parents decided to use my 17th birthday to announce they were getting divorced —LostNTheNoise
3.
On my 16th birthday, my mother was in the middle of a several year long fight with her parents. She told me I should call them to see if they would like to come over for coffee (because she wouldn’t call them herself). During the call I’m talking to my grandmother and get the usual “happy birthday” and “how are you” – it’s important to note that I haven’t seen them in months and we only lived like 10 minutes apart.
So I ask if they would like to come over for coffee and my grandmother says she’s going to ask my grandfather if he would like to go. Now I don’t know if she didn’t realize that she didn’t cover the phone, but I heard them talking back and forth a and heard my grandmother say “I don’t want to hurt her feelings but I don’t want to go over there.” I already felt when I was a kid that they didn’t love me as much as my older sibling, but this was the conformation that it was true. They couldn’t get past their bullsh-t and come see their granddaughter on her birthday. When she began talking to me she said some sort of excuse as to why they couldn’t come over. I didn’t hear it, I was trying not to cry so I could still talk. We said our “I love you’s,” though it was hard for me, and hung up. I just went to my room and laid down and cried. I didn’t give a sh-t about anything and just wanted the day to be over.
My mother had a small surprise party for me by having my friends over, I tried my best to pretend to be happy and have fun, but I just wanted it to end. I was so mad and so hurt that I just wanted to crawl in bed and stay there forever. —yinyangdoggos
4.
Had the same birthday as a guy in my class. In the school cantina is was a tradition to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday kid. I’m sitting there eating with my friend when the cantina lady comes up and says: “we have to sing Happy Birthday!” I say “no, that’s so embarrassing!” She replies: “but it’s not for you, dear!” Btw, it was a really small school. —Phoenix18793
5.
My 21st. My gf at the time arranged for a surprise party for me inviting all my friends. Only one person showed up. —Xenomemphate
6.
My mother forgot it, then called me a liar when I told her. I had to get my driver’s license to prove it. I was in my late 20s.—Captain_Shrug
7.
My friends have always made a big deal of everyone’s 30th birthday. Two of the friend’s birthdays are 8-10 months before mine. For one friend we went to Palm Springs. The other to a weekend getaway in the mountains. All of this was planned meticulously months before their birthdays and executed perfectly with birthday dinners, custom cakes, party decorations, and lots of alcohol. I’m an introvert/extrovert, and don’t like being the center of attention. But my friends insisted on planning a birthday bash for me because everyone else had an extravagant 30th birthday.
They brought up how they were planning my birthday dozens of times months prior, and told me not to worry about a thing, that they were planning everything. Including it being brought up a week before my actual birthday. On my birthday, a Friday, I text the friend group thread asking what was planned and what I should wear. I was told that everyone had “completely forgot”. I tried my best not to be upset and managed to get a last-minute reservation at a restaurant, I guess planning my own birthday party.
Only half of the friend group showed up to dinner, the other half stating they had plans already or were too tired. While eating dessert my friends all talked about going out for drinks and dancing after as a way to make it up to me. But, when dinner ended 20-30 mins later, they all ordered Ubers and went home instead. To this day I still have no idea what happened. I’ve brought it up, and the entire friend group insists they aren’t and weren’t mad at me and that it wasn’t a passive aggressive thing.
They state over and over that they “simply forgot”. I ended up going home at about 8:30pm, drank a bottle of wine to myself, and played “Pity Party” by Melanie Martinez on repeat. Happy 30th Birthday to me. —volcom2096
8.
My 18th birthday, I had a party and one of my friends was on the floor with a knife threatening to kill themselves. Or when I was depressed in my 20’s, I made an effort, invited a bunch of people out, and one person turned up. That was a dark moment for me. But my mother still wins this though, my dad passed away on her birthday. She always says he had the worst sense of timing. —Contranine
9.
My last birtday was really f—ked. On the day itself, my uncle had a funeral and on the day of family celebration I ended up in hospital —with torsion of my testicle. —DrachirCZ
10.
My birthday is in February. For my 11th birthday my parents didn’t get me a gift just a card. They said because they bought me a brand new bike at Christmas money was a bit tight. My brother’s birthday is in June, he also got a brand new bike at Christmas and a brand new PlayStation for his birthday.
Not that big a deal compared to some stories, but not getting a gift from your parents and then your brother getting 2 amazing gifts kinda sucked as a kid. —jennyrob669
