If you're not careful, birthdays can be downright depressing. Take someone like Melanie Griffith. The blonde attached to Antonio Banderas is seldom seen without her barnacling herself to his arm. I'm guessing she doesn't love birthdays. If, for the mere fact, that she gets an even tighter face-lift than the year before. It's sad, and please may that not start happening to me or my friends.

Birthdays also bear the worst testimony to expectations in the whole calendar year. One of my friends had been seeing a guy for a good three years and he forgot her birthday altogether. In a day of Facebook and Twitter, how someone manages to forget a birthday when it's blinking at you from two social networks, is beyond me. Which makes it less forgivable.

When my grandfather was in a trench on the Western Front during World War I, it's acceptable that he forgot, amongst the bullets and chaos. However in a day and age of status updates, you'd have to be living in an isolated bunker in Greenland to forget.

But it could possibly be rectified with the presentation of an alarmingly well-thought-out gift, lots of good sex, and one thousand apologies and grovelings.

So it happens. People are fallible and they forget. But, their star signs aren't publicised in the back of The Sun, as a constant reminder.

Imagine the expectations if you were a celebrity? And the sheer seismic pressure of delivery and creativity? You usually buy them a German cabriolet or Hummer, dependant on personal tastes, on the first birthday — how do you follow that up? I suppose after Britney gave Kevin Federline a Harley and a car, she bought him a Spanish-style mansion in the Valley, and a year later, she probably bought him a Chihuahua. And now they're divorced. Coincidence?

Was it Mary J. Blige who really thought out of the box, and bought her husband a bed in the shape of a Bentley? I saw it on Cribs. How do you top a Bentley Bed? I suppose her husband sufficed by purchasing a set of gold encrusted crunk teeth, but either way, celebrity birthdays in particular must create some unbelievable expectations.

And without asking, it's good testimony to how a guy feels about you. Perhaps you've only been dating a few weeks, or casually seeing each other for a few months. How he reacts towards your birthday says much about everything really. If his behaviour leans towards affectionate birthday treats and something even as small as flowers, then he cares enough that you should stick around. If he forgets: well there's your answer. You are just a shag-buddy. Birthdays can be a harsh dose of reality. And not just one-more-year-gone wise.

Good friends remember birthdays, but maybe casual flings don't. Which is why birthdays need a firm level of resilience. Say all your friends and family remember and your phone bleeps all day from 'happy happy' messages, but if the dude in question forgets, every message is a disappointment. It can take one person to screw up a birthday.

But enough nay-saying. The ones that make the effort — celebrity or general citizen otherwise — can also reaffirm those expectations, and in most cases, even exceed them.

And if those expectations aren't meant — just do a Drew and Cameron. Head off to Hawaii for a girls weekend. Just start saving now.

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