Why Surprise Parties are Evil

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m way out of line on this one. I’m wrong. I’m over-thinking it.

The thing is, I’m not. If you’re defending surprise parties, you’re under-thinking it. Let me tell you why:

First of all, let’s talk about what a surprise party is. Basically, it’s when a bunch of people get together to organise a party for you, and don’t tell you about it beforehand. Traditionally, you walk into wherever the party’s being held, and everyone jumps out and yells “Surprise!”.

I know, it sounds pretty innocent so far, doesn’t it? Bear with me. You see, there are a few problems with this.

Here’s the first one: the people organising your party have two options. They can either just rely on you being free that night without consulting you (which you can probably see has an obvious downside for you – especially if you’ve already spent money on those plans); or, alternately, they can try to persuade you to not make plans that night without telling you what they have planned. Which leads us directly to the second problem.

Which is this: somewhere along the line, in the course of organising this, the chances are good that someone – and not just any someone, but someone who would organise a surprise party for you, so probably one of your closest friends – will have to lie to you in order to preserve the surprise. Of course, it’s a white lie, right? It’s harmless. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

Well, that kinda depends on what the lies are. Excuse me, I have to get hypothetical for a moment here:

You’ve decided to take a job in another city, and you only have a few days before you have to leave, so you decide to organise a get-together the night before you fly out. But the funny thing is, only the first person you speak to isn’t already busy – and oddly enough, when you call them back, they’re busy now too. And so it goes all week. Not even a single person has a cancellation, even though they can tell that all this indifference is upsetting you.

So on your last night in town, you’re making your way home, feeling a little sorry for yourself, but when you get in the front door: everyone jumps out and yells “Surprise!”

Now tell me true: was that totally worth it, or not? Was it worth your friends lying to you, pretending to ignore your distress, and finally, shouting “Surprise” at you? Wasn’t that bit where they all laughed at your surprised face totally worth the last few days of thinking that you were totally right to be leaving these two-faced assholes behind you?

Surprise parties are evil. That is all.