I turn 38 today. I always find writing about the fact that it is my birthday a deeply awkward thing to do. No one ought to care, but when I’m trying to post something every day, skating past the fact of my birthday seems even weirder than an awkward post acknowledging it. So, I thought I’d have a look back at how I’ve dealt with this conundrum over the past two decades.

Last year, I just ignored it entirely and posted about unrelated stuff. I think that may be the best plan.

In 2021 and 2020, I made the same Richard Thaler inspired joke about being a ’promising thirty-something’. That still applies.

From 2015 to 2019, I didn’t mention it.

In 2014, I pictured a (not wholly appetising) birthday lunch, perhaps inspired by my 2012 photo of a cake. But I didn’t post on my birthday in 2013, and nor did I in 2011, 2010, 2009, or 2007.

In 2008, I posted about the ’stupid economy’ but didn’t mention my own birthday. In 2006, I made a pun about version 21 of ‘me’ being released, which did at least have a titter of humour to it, unlike my po-faced 2005 post, and my under-the-weather 2004 entry.

None of this is really scintillating content, is it?

Perhaps, as it will be today, birthdays are best enjoyed offline than online.

The picture at the top of this post is an AI-generated image created by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2.