Twenty-four. To some, twenty-four is just a random number. Others, it is the number on the back of their sports jersey. To most, twenty-four represents all the hours in the day. But to me, twenty-four is so much more. There are twenty-four girls on Alabama's campus out of 19,885 who are my best friends.

Back in high school, my friend group was extremely small, close-knit, and consisted of me and four other girls. Prior to entering college, I was under the impression that in order to have close friends, your group had to be less than ten people, and I was definitely wrong. The number of people in your friend group doesn't damage the closeness; if anything it strengthens it.

There is a huge difference between having a lot of "friends" and having a big friend group. These days, we are all "friends" in some way. We all have those friends that you meet while you are out, those in your classes, and lastly, the ones on Instagram and Facebook. Social media has heightened our "friendship" with a bunch of people because we now know what they did over the summer, who they hang out with regularly, what date parties they go to, etc. Social media makes us think we know those "friends" a lot better than we actually do based on their posts.

Thanks to GroupMe, our big friend group is fully functional. Going out to lunch and want to tell everyone? Post in GroupMe, boom, done. Now we are all meeting downtown. Fighting with your boyfriend? Screenshots are immediately sent for feedback on what to say next. Need something to wear for a date party? 10 pictures of dresses are sent immediately after asking. Clearly, these things are all very small and possess the qualities of a stereotypical sorority girl, but it is when we are not talking via GroupMe that really matters.

It is when we are all sitting around on a Friday night, in sweats and t-shirts at one of our friends' houses, watching some cliché movie, helping someone grieve over the loss of a family member or friend, or at breakfast the next morning after a party, filling everyone in on our night.

Yes, I understand that all these things can be done with a small friend group as well. But with a small friend group, I couldn't say that my best friends were from 11 different states. Even though we are all from different backgrounds and lifestyles, we get each other. And for the things we don't understand about each other, we learn.

Having a big friend group has not only provided me with my best friends, but it has allowed us to realize that life is different outside of our hometowns, and that having an open mind is crucial to making connections.