You start rifling through your friends closet. You begin stalking her Facebook and tracking her purchases. You try to find the numbers of her friends from home, and watch where she goes to eat. The reason for the stalking? No, she’s not dating your ex. It’s her birthday.
Birthdays are always intimidating. You want your friend to love the surprises you have in store, but are stressed out while planning them. You can’t wait to see her face, but are terrified that she’ll actually hate everything.
My best advice would be to work with a group. It’s much easier to come up with the perfect restaurant, gift, and activity when you have a few people to bounce ideas off of. This also gives everyone an idea of how much to spend, so no one spends too much or too little. Just make sure everyone is on the same page, and that the plan for splitting the bill is worked out ahead of time.
For gifts, work to figure out your friend’s personality. What type of clothes does she wear? What concerts does she like? What books does she read? Pick up subtle clues and go off that. It does not need to be flashy, but should be thoughtful. Start looking early, so that you can hit sales. It’ll be a lot easier to find that eggplant-colored purse on sale if you start six months before her birthday rather than one week before.
If you end up at a friend’s birthday with a ton of people, you may need to roll with a few punches. For one thing, make sure the birthday girl’s tab is covered. This may end up in a higher-than-normal bill for you, especially as bills always seem to render even calc students unable to do math. No matter what, stay calm and don’t let the birthday girl know there are problems.
Finally, no party is complete without going out after. Find out what venue the birthday girl likes best. If everyone is 21 or older, consider a classy city bar. If not, stick around Fordham. Does she miss her freshman-year times at Tinkers? Head back for old time’s sake. Does she love to dance all night long? Howls’ it is.
What it all comes down to is accommodating the limits of friends with the preferences of the birthday girl. Plan something she’ll love, but don’t become overly stressed. Birthdays are meant to celebrate a person’s life, and that’s worth partying to.