My 21st birthday is coming up and it is going to be big. Being able to legally adopt a child, buy weed in California and become an Uber driver seems worthy of a huge celebration (that and I love any excuse to throw a party all about me). When I say ‘coming up’, I mean my birthday is in December, giving me nearly eight months to prepare. That might seem extreme, but there is a reason I need so long.

First of all, I am renowned for throwing a good party. Everyone looks forward to my big day – they genuinely have calendars to count down the days! Yes, to be fair, my birthday is Christmas, but being born at such an inconvenient time has to have some perks. Since this party is going to be such an anticipated event, it needs a lot of time and effort. It is important I uphold my reputation.

Secondly, this year requires a particularly tricky task – merging my friendship groups. Navigating the tension between my home friends and my uni friends (because, trust me, there is tension) must be approached very sensitively. Throwing a party that involves both sides feels like arranging a forbidden marriage. Two families at war, staring daggers at each other as I walk down the aisle; hissing at each other as I attempt to unify the two groups – very Shakespearean. As the central figure in this dispute, I feel a duty to resolve the hostility, and what could be a better occasion than my 21st?

“Throwing a party that involves both sides feels like arranging a forbidden marriage”

Coming to uni, I knew whoever I met had a lot to live up to. At home, I have been in the same friendship group since the beginning of secondary school, with many of us having known each other since primary school or even from birth. We are the sort of friendship group that mums gush about on Facebook. “An incredible bunch of young ladies”, “an amazing group of friends” (verbatim): we truly are a parent’s wet dream. I’ll be honest, I completely agree with the soppy posts (though I would never admit that to the group). I truly love them (gross).

The only issue with having such great friends is that you do become a bit insular. The prospect of making new friends at uni was daunting because it had been at least seven years since I last needed to make friends all by myself. With all of us stretched out across the county, making new lives away from home, I was scared I would lose such strong relationships. To go from seeing each other everyday to every few months was terrifying. I am glad to report that I had nothing to worry about. The group chat is still active, the pub trips are frequent and we actually still like each other (a miracle, really). During the holiday, we were asked by a former classmate, who seemed genuinely bewildered, how we’ve managed to stay friends. The general consensus from the group is that – along with our incredible humour and communication skills– we are collectively too lazy to fall out.

“Coming to uni, I knew whoever I met had a lot to live up to”

While I am very lucky to have kept my home friends, it has created a very interesting dynamic at uni.

I will be the first to admit I am not the most social person. It takes me a while to be comfortable with new people, so it was only towards the end of first year that I felt I’d formed true friendship. Now, like at home, I have some really precious relationships that I intend to keep. This, however, does not change the fact that they met me at my worst – as a fresher. In the first few months of meeting them, I mentioned my home friends in nearly every sentence for lack of anything interesting to say. All my stories, all my experiences involved them, so I couldn’t really avoid it – but even so, I would not recommend raving about your other friends as an opener. As I got closer to my uni friends, I stopped relying on home for conversation but the damage was already done. They had heard too much. An on-going joke emerged that I ‘preferred my home friends.’ At every and any opportunity, I am hit with the favouritism accusation – and here lies the beginning of the battle.

Despite not ever meeting each other, my two friend groups quickly became enemies, much to my horror. At this point I am wondering if it is even safe to put them in the same room. My tactic so far has been similar to how we acclimated my dog to people – slowly, one by one. So far it has worked, but my birthday is getting closer and I am running out of time.

“My tactic so far has been similar to how we acclimated my dog to people – slowly, one by one”

Though my aim through all of this has been to bring the groups together, I am starting to rethink my plan. Lately, two rival friends have put their differences behind them and started sending each other TikToks. While I am glad they have smoothed over their differences, it is now to the point that I’ve become a side character in their relationship. It seems they are always in conversation, and apparently they talk about me. Uni and home in combination create a deadly concoction of embarrassing stories that could be fatal for my social life. They are too strong together. I’m a little scared.

In all seriousness, it is difficult to traverse the separation between home and uni life, particularly when it comes to friendships. Sometimes it feels like you are spread across places, stuck in the middle, struggling to keep up with both sides. To begin with, I felt like I couldn’t give the same level of myself to friends in Cambridge as I did at home. In some ways, I was reserving that degree of friendship for my home friends as if I would be betraying them if I had a life at uni without them. I have come to find that friendship doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t need to be limited or carefully measured. New friendships can be just as meaningful as old ones. And just as annoying. Both can be equally as good at teasing you. Wish me luck when they meet.