Basic Trope: No one attends a character's birthday party.
- Straight: Jack starts his birthday party, but no one comes.
- Exaggerated: For most of his life, Jack celebrates his birthday parties all by himself.
- Downplayed:
- No one comes to Jack's birthday party, save for his cat.
- Jack lives with his family or a roommate, and they attend his birthday party, but no one actually comes over for it.
- No one comes to Jack's party, but he still gets sent presents and well-wishes.
- Justified:
- Jack's friends have died.
- Everyone forgot that it was Jack's birthday.
- Jack didn't actually invite anyone; he wanted to spend his birthday alone.
- No one wants to go to the snore fest that is Jack's birthday observation.
- Alice's birthday party trumps Jack's.
- Inverted:
- Jack's friends fix up a birthday party for him, but he never arrives.
- Thousands of people who don't personally know Jack show up to his birthday party.
- Subverted: Jack prepares for his birthday party, and when it starts, nobody comes. But later, his friends all turn up.
- Double Subverted: ...only it turns out that they showed up for various unrelated reasons, and they all leave without celebrating Jack's birthday.
- Parodied: Jack goes the entire time acting like he would at a birthday party with all his friends there, cracking jokes to himself and opening self-wrapped presents, without any indication of him being insane (besides just being a Cloudcuckoolander).
- Zig Zagged: Jack's party starts with him alone, only for someone to show up... it's the mailman, bringing him a package. The package turns out to be a present from a friend who did remember his birthday, but still couldn't come.
- Averted: All of Jack's friends attend his birthday.
- Enforced: "Jack should be the type of character who the audience feels sorry for; why not have him celebrate his birthday all by himself?"
- Lampshaded: "Well, it's ten minutes past the time on the RSVP. I think I see where this is going."
- Invoked:
- Jack deliberately doesn't tell anyone about his birthday so he can celebrate by himself.
- Jack's abusive partner makes sure none of the invites get delivered, to make Jack feel like his friends are abandoning him.
- Exploited: Jack knows nobody will come to his birthday party, since they haven't for the last few years. He spends his birthday working on a secret project, knowing he won't be disturbed.
- Defied:
- Jack kidnaps his friends and ties them up in chairs in his house, so that he isn't alone at his party.
- Jack's friends know that he might end up alone on his birthday, so they all work together to make sure everyone goes to his party.
- Discussed: "You guys could have at least told me you weren't going to come by for my birthday party so I didn't go to the trouble of setting the decorations up."
- Conversed: "Jack doesn't have any friends, does he? I bet when his birthday comes around, he'll go all out on decorating the house for a party just to blow out a candle on a store-bought cupcake, alone as always."
- Implied: During an otherwise unrelated conversation, Jack mentions his last birthday party, and everyone present expresses surprise that his birthday was so recent.
- Deconstructed: Jack has a meltdown upon realizing that nobody considers him important enough to celebrate his birthday.
- Played For Drama: Extremely upset that no one would come to his birthday, Jack tears up all of his party decorations and promptly commits suicide.
"Happy birthday to me..."
