Last Friday, we celebrated the 30th birthday of a good friend of ours - for the purposes of privacy, let's call her Megan. She had a big party; we ate, drank and danced into the night - it really was a lot of fun! The party was held in the hall of a kind of youth centre building, which was great for us because there was enough space for the 50 or so guests to sit down and eat, as well as to dance, and there was a kitchen and place to keep all of the drinks too.
When we arrived at the party, which was already in full swing, we of course greeted Megan first and wished her a happy birthday. She showed us the lay of land and where everything was for us to help ourselves to, as well as the place at the back of the hall where everyone was putting their gifts which she would open later. We didn't know a lot of people that were there, so we joined the table of a small group of our friends that we did know and opened our beers.
This is pretty much how our night went. We drank some beers, had some great conversation and, of course, spent a long while on the dance floor. As the party went on and on, a lot of people left; by about 2 or 3am there was only a selection of us left, I would say about 15 people. This was actually a cool thing because as the group became smaller we could easily meet and talk to new people. I met a chef, a lawyer, a school teacher and a psychotherapist, and I really was having a great time.
Alas, the time came to leave, I guess at about 3.30-4am and we finally rolled into bed. When we left I was aware that the 5 or so other people from our close group left too, leaving maybe 8 or 9 people at the party. So, we slept, woke up the next day remarking on what a fun party it had been, as evidenced by our hangovers, and got on with our weekend.
However, the mood quickly changed. On Sunday we received a message from Megan. It was long and emotional, but the jist of it was that somebody from the party had opened her presents, had stolen some of them and had closed the wrapping to try and hide it. Megan was clearly shocked and saddened, not just because special gifts had been stolen from her, but more importantly because she knew it had to have been one of her friends at her party who was the thief.
I had a quick exchange of messages with Megan where I asked if someone else could have got into the hall overnight and taken something, but no, it is impossible, it could ONLY have been someone at the party. Imagine having to go through all of your closest friends who celebrated your 30th birthday with you, no longer trusting any of them and try to figure out which one of them could do something so horrible... I feel sick just thinking about it. Even Logan and I have been thinking over the people who were left near the end of the party, questioning the chef and the lawyer, as well as our own friends, almost like a game of cluedo - only this isn't a game.
The really strange thing about the whole thing is that nothing else went missing. There was money unsupervised in bags all over the hall and in coat pockets - none of it was stolen, only the birthday presents. This shows that the thief wasn't really interested in possessing the actual material goods, or interested in the value of the presents; was perhaps only after the thrill of stealing in front of everyone, like a cleptomaniac.
In Megan's original message she simply begs whoever it was to return the gifts to her address. She even says how sad she is that one of her close friends clearly has a problem and offers to talk with them about it if they need help. I just can't imagine how she must be feeling, not knowing which of her friends could do this to her, not knowing who her true friends really are.
I guess there was no real purpose of this blog post, nothing really can come from it, except that I find the story so shocking that I wanted to share it. If this hadn't happened to someone I know, I would have never believed it could happen - what kind of person goes to a friend's birthday party and steals their presents?!! Do we really know our own friends?
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