​My birthday is coming up on October 19th. By the time you read this, my birthday will have already passed. Before I continue, I just want to say I love my friends and I’m grateful to have them. It’s just every year, I come across this question that’s so hard to answer: Should I mix friend groups or not?

​I know that sounds trivial and like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but it is genuinely so difficult.
I’ve been told by multiple people that I’m popular. I don’t believe that to be true; however, I do have a lot of friends. So many that I had to cap the amount of people I invited to my birthday party this year to 11. I’ve recently been informed that’s a lot of people. I’d also like to mention that I'm just easy to talk to and I'm in a couple of clubs so I’m bound to know people. The reason I have so many friends isn’t only because of my participation in clubs but because I’m outspoken. At least I’ve been told that. Another reason is because my personality has so many different parts: there’s pieces of me for almost everybody. As a result of that, everybody I’m friends with are damn near polar opposites.
I have this constant fear of making people uncomfortable. I have another one of making people feel left out. You can see where there’s a problem here. The question of mixing friend groups isn’t just one question. It’s like thirty. Should I mix friend groups? OK, now who would be comfortable with who? What about everybody having somebody to talk to? Can friend group A handle friend group B’s humor? From there it just gets more and more complicated. ​
This year, like many others, I’ve decided that I’m going to mix friend groups. However, in contrast to my other birthday celebrations, it will NOT just be a sample size of people, but instead all of my friend groups. I’m in four. This gets really stressful, as I have to find somewhere for everybody to be. Then there’s my friends worrying about me ignoring them for my other friends or people they talk to talking to somebody else. I understand that people might not be as social, but everybody goes to the same school. Find something to talk about. I promise you: nobody is going to bite. Don’t be lame and just sit in a corner because you don’t know anybody.
I know that sounds a little mean, but it should not be this hard to get a group of people to talk. This even happens in smaller scales. I’ll be with a friend and we have to stop to talk to another group, and they just stand there awkwardly staring at me. I understand the feeling of not wanting to intrude, but it’s okay to say hi.
Having to entertain that many people is a lot as well. I want to enjoy my birthday with my friends, of course, but everyone wanting my attention all at once gets really overstimulating. This is why it’s imperative that everyone has somebody to talk to that isn’t me. I can’t sit there and talk to 11 people at one time unless we’re eating, which we will do at a point, but after that y’all kinda gotta figure it out. It’s really difficult to mix my friend groups because of the differences but also because of the intricacies of the entire process. My friends also have stuff in common as well because they all have me in common. They just have to figure out what.
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Long story short, I love my friends, but y’all stress me the hell out. Getting my friends together should not be this hard. I’m going to have to do this every year for the rest of the time I have multiple friend groups. Help me.

Trey Sherrod