Fine. So I'm heartless.

People accuse of me of not knowing how to 'be a friend'. Their basis of accusation? Because I don't remember birthdays.

I don't deny it. I find it infinitely difficult to match one day out of the 365 that make up one year to just one person. Add to that the fact that I don't just have to remember the birthday of a single friend, but I'm expected commit to memory the significant days of best friends, close friends, good acquaintances, casual acquaintances besides having to remember that of my father's, mother's, brother's, grandmothers' and fathers', aunties, uncles and cousins.

Ok, I exaggerate ( a literary technique, I might add, to emphasise the absolute ridiculousness of a particular subject). But the point is, many people place grave significance on this single feat of memory. Maybe its just my inherent incompetency when it comes to anything involving numbers. Maybe its just that my sorry compilation of grey matter cannot possible store this huge database of people and dates. Or maybe I just don't care?

That is often the conclusion people come to each time I respond to a call informing me that so-and-so's birthday is just around the corner and we should get her something with a vaguely surprised 'Really? Again?'. (Seriously, just when you thought you're done with one birthday..)

And yet, contrary to all forewarnings that I may very well soon be losing friends by the fistfuls, I still have plenty of them - old friends whom I've made since I was 10, new ones I'd found in university, friends whom I've practically grown up with in church - and I'm still making more. I must be doing something right.

Friendship, to me, is more than just remembering dates. Sure, it plays an essential part in the complex jigsaw of any kind of relationship, but it cannot possibly be the fulcrum on which the relationship rests. Sure, remembering a birthday comes naturally in a relationship that is long and intimate, where you want to celebrate them for being who they are, for being here, for allowing you to be their friend. And it does happen to me, especially when it comes to a birthday of a true good friend. But not remembering it does not mean you are less of a friend. If it is, then all my knowledge of their fears, anxieties, dreams and idiosyncracies is for naught.

Birthdays can be exchanged and recorded on a PDA, address book, even set on 'Reminder' mode on MSN Messenger. But knowing why she can't commit in a relationship or what his five-year plan is - that comes with years (days AND nights) of talking, sharing, discussing, of comforting silences, of gentle rebukes, of sobbing on your shoulder.

Years, that is, of being a friend.