It’s been awhile since I let loose one of my rants about something trivial that yet bugs me, so here’s one.

I hate surprise parties.

I must admit that the appeal of surprise parties completely eludes me and I am getting to dislike them even more as I get older. Maybe it is because they are an acquired taste and since they were unheard of in Sri Lanka when I was growing up (at least I don’t recall ever hearing about one, let alone attending any), I just didn’t learn to like them. And yet in the US people seem to really like them.

The whole thing about sneaking in early and then hiding and waiting until the guest of honor arrives and then jumping out and shouting in unison “surprise!” strikes me as childish.

What happens after the surprise is sprung is equally bad. Much of the rest of the time consists of the honorees going around to each guest telling them how surprised they were and how they were puzzled by some vaguely unusual things that happened that were related to the surprise but which they did not suspect were due to a party being planned for them. One often suspects that they knew that a surprise was in the works all along but went along with the charade in order to not disappoint the organizers. Meanwhile the organizers of the surprise go around telling people in excruciating detail how they planned the surprise and how they lulled the honoree into not suspecting, the various glitches that might have unraveled their plans, and how they managed to overcome them.

I have attended a few surprise parties and find them dreary in the extreme, so much so that my heart sinks when I receive invitations for one, as happened just a few days ago. When I do go to them, I dutifully stay out of sight so as not to be a party-pooper and emerge once the ritual is over but I studiously avoid the post-mortems of how it was carried out, preferring to converse with a congenial fellow guest on other topics.

It is not clear that the pleasure of being surprised with a party thrown in one’s honor (if it is a pleasure at all) overcomes all the negatives associated with it. People who don’t like to have parties thrown for them of course hate it. Those who would have liked their loved ones to remember the special event are often deliberately misled before the event that no one seems to care or remember the day and thus may carry around with them feelings of sadness and disappointment for days and even weeks. Is that worth it for the momentary rush that the surprise brings with it?

This is particularly true for children, who may be truly sad that no one seems to care about their birthday. Isn’t it better for them to be aware that a party is being planned for them so that they can share in the fun of planning for it and the build up of excitement until the day arrives? Furthermore, because surprise parties seem to be so ubiquitous, some people might mistakenly think that the lack of any talk of a party means that a surprise party is being planned for them and the realization that there really was no party at all may be even more disappointing.

For the guests, a surprise party is a real nuisance because one has to go really early, long before the party proper begins, and just hang around until the time the honorees arrive, which often gets delayed because of the convoluted planning.

The last straw for me was when I was invited to a surprise party for a friend’s birthday that was organized by his wife and children. This family is notorious for having ‘surprise’ parties for each other for almost every occasion and one would think that they would have to be really dim bulbs to still be surprised. The friend is Sri Lankan-born and lives about an hour’s drive away from us. We were given a time of arrival and then asked to park at a nearby parking area and wait for a phone call that would tell us that it was all clear, that the honoree had been sent out of the house on an errand and that we could then sneak into the house and hide. Of course we had to park far away so that there would be no telltale collection of recognizable cars when the honoree returned and entered the house.

I grudgingly went along with the plan. What I did not know was that I had been asked to come much earlier than necessary. Their circle of family and friends includes people of Sri Lankan and US origin. Sri Lankans have the reputation of not being punctual for parties (the friend who was being honored with the party being one of the worst culprits) so the organizers had told just them to come an hour earlier than they told the US-born people. Since I like to be punctual, I had come at the requested time (early in fact to avoid messing up the surprise) and was annoyed to discover that I had been tricked and had to wait in the parking lot for well over an hour.

It strikes me that the only people who really enjoy these surprise parties are the organizers themselves because they have the anticipation of being congratulated by everyone for pulling off a successful surprise and receiving the gratitude of the honorees for going to all the trouble. For everyone else, it seems like a pain. The only exception might be guests who are very small children for whom keeping a secret and hiding and jumping out and surprising someone can be a giggly delight.

End of rant.