Are Facebook "Happy Birthdays" Genuine?

Hello

I was chatting to a friend today about birthdays seeing as we were wrapping "lucky dip gifts" for the kids coming to our daughters' joint 8th party.

I mentioned that this year that I got so many messages on Facebook and most of the people who posted on my page I haven't seen in years. I hardly respond to their posts, they don't respond to mine and if I am honest (and if they are honest) probably ignore all the little titbits of information that don't make sense to anyone else but themselves.

So the thought occurred to me, are facebook birthday wishes sincere or are people just posting something on your page because a little block in the right hand corner reminds them that it's your birthday?

I am not saying it's a bad thing, I am merely questioning the sincerity of it. Am I being too sensitive here? I saw a quote recently (I probably shared it) that said something about people being in our lives for a specific time and then for whatever reason they are out of our lives. Is is necessary to refriend everyone of your high school classmates? Some of them I don't even remember, and I seriously doubt that anything I did keeps me vividly in their memories.

Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of people from high school with whom I am still friends and there are many of my "adult life friends" I haven't lost touch with, but we communicate in other ways, telephone, texts (SMS's for those in Africa) and those conversations are so much more meaningful.

You will notice here that I have not included family in my rant, and that's where social networking sites are totally awesome, in that I can see exactly what my family are up to and being so far away from them, it keeps them all closer in both my thoughts and my heart.

Anyway, I was pleased to see so many birthday wishes which just proves that whether they were sent sincerely or not, my ego got a great stroking and generally made for good day all round.

In love and light (and sincerity)
Tracey