There is a carefully calculated art to making new friends, one that I have mastered over the years.

Since the fifth grade, I’ve had a new best friend every year, falling in and out of friend groups in a way that appeared almost easy to outsiders. I learned the strategies of casual conversation, learned how to approach a group of strangers, learned how to seek out those who interested me and discover what made them tick so that I could someday be a part of their various inner circles. I was simultaneously fascinated and frightened by the concept of a “best friend.” To me, it meant having someone who knew you better than you knew yourself, someone who both understood and accepted you for the person you are, no matter how far that person strayed from the one you wanted to be.

I shy away from emotional intimacy, and always have, copping out of a group of friends at the first sign of vulnerability, which has always made it difficult to maintain close relationships. I am not alone in this; in a modern, digitalized world, closeness and connection are often abandoned. We know others only by how much of themselves they choose to reveal to us. What we cannot know is whether that is their whole selves, or just a small piece.

What is known of me is only a sliver of what lies in wait, a mess of moving parts and scattered motivations and this biting desire to be not only a piece, but rather to be a piece of a whole- one-half of a best friend duo. I picture the necklaces they sell in jewelry stores, the ones with the broken heart where each person gets a piece. The jagged edges come together to form something smooth and recognizable, no sign that it was ever damaged or broken. To me, that’s friendship- the power to create a whole out of mere pieces. To create something beautiful, meaningful, and lasting out of a few introductory words.

I had one friendship like this, and it was both the best and worst time of my life. It was all-encompassing, consuming, addictive at times- I loved feeling important to someone and I loved having someone important to me. And when we drifted away from each other and our friendship fell apart, I found myself right back at the starting point: once more a nervous fifth grader who tripped over her words asking the kids on the playground steps if they liked making friendship bracelets.

But there was something reassuring in the familiarity of uncertainty as well. Without another person there to balance out my failures, to comfort me in my successes, and to pass time doing nothing with, I was forced to tackle an even scarier question: who was I?

Growing up, I was taught that if you spent lots of time alone, you didn’t have any friends. Free time was meant to be spent socializing and exploring, shopping and dining and going out. When you become a part of a large group of close individuals, you experience this kind of frantic drive to pack as much into a day as possible. There is no such thing as an empty moment; silence can always be filled.

When I began to spend more time alone, the very first thing I noticed was the silence. I am known as loud and talkative, someone who always has a story to tell (even if it’s the same few, over and over and over again). I hated it at the beginning, wanting to fill the quiet with something other than my thoughts. But, the more comfortable I grew with it, the more I loved it. And the more I began to love being alone.

I was able to do what I wanted to do, on my own schedule. I had the time to fit in the things I kept meaning to do that always got left out of my social activities- the things that are ultimately the most important to me. I finished my first novel. I started writing another. I launched a social media campaign promoting feminism and self-acceptance. I built a website, started my own blog, and began writing for multiple publications. I still socialized- just less often, and spent more time with my family, something that I appreciate now, knowing I will be leaving for college in just a few months. And most of all, I began to talk to people I might not have otherwise, learning their stories and spreading my group of friends to become the widest it has ever been. I may have lost someone who I considered my best friend, but I found myself, and to me, that’s one of the most important things in life.

I am in love with spending time alone. I go shopping by myself, go out to eat or hang out writing at coffee shops without companionship. I am, essentially, my own best friend, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know who I am, or at least I’m closer to answering the question than I was before. But for the first time in years, I feel comfortable with myself, feel at peace with the girl who stares back at me in the mirror every day. That girl is no longer trying to be someone she is not; she simply is, existing in a state of acceptance rather than one of want, need, or comparison.

I am still learning what it means to be friends with myself, and I think I always will be, but I know without a doubt that growing comfortable with spending time alone is one of the most influential and important things we can do. We cannot know or love other people if we cannot first know or love ourselves, and no matter which way you choose to look at it, there is an element of self-reflection required for any sort of personal study.

What I have learned about being my own best friend is that I do not need others to complete me. I complete myself. Every gap, every hole, every missing piece that I once believed would require someone else to fill- I can fill them. I may not have done it yet, but I know now that I can, and that makes a world of difference.