

First, happy belated birthday. I hope it still managed to be a positive overall.
Secondly, kudos to you for your self-awareness. Most people would be unable to admit their unexpected attachment to the trappings of a birthday and would just chalk it up to people not caring.
To your point, I think it’s born of two main things. First, as people get older, those around us outside of the immediate family tend to retire the gift-giving on birthdays. Perhaps they don’t celebrate their own any longer and it fans out to those in their circle or maybe they just don’t think a gift is necessary as we continue aging.
I think the second cause might be that as we get older, we keep adding people to our circle of friends and at some point, it just seems larger than we can manage in regards to gift giving to everyone that deserves it. Couple that with being told by you that gifts weren’t necessary, It seems a logical conclusion to come to.
All that being said, unless our friend or family has specifically said they didn’t like to celebrate it, we should all make a big deal of someone’s big day.
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