Did you know that 1 out of 6 people never experience a friendship that lasts more than 10 years? I bet you also didn’t know that the definition of “True Friendship,” insists that a friendship last for a minimum of 12 years in order to be considered “true”, according to www.psychologytoday.com. If the statistics listed above are accurate, that means that 112 million people on the face of this Earth have never experienced true friendship. In light of this depressing discovery, I would like to give a genuine thanks to my (almost) life-long best friend for everything that you have done for me up to this point in our lives, and for everything I’m sure you will do for me in the future. I’d also like to offer my sincere apologies, because I’m not going anywhere, it is completely impossible to get rid of me. Sorry not sorry.

To function successfully as a human being, there needs to be an outlet of some kind, whether it is a physical outlet such as sports or hitting the gym, a mental outlet, like taking a nice long bubble bath with candles and incense surrounding you, (the whole nine is necessary when you’re on the verge of a mental breakdown,) or an emotional outlet. An emotional outlet can consist of a few different options, for example, a good sob session, where you can display your ugliest crying face and your chest hurts from heaving your body around in a fit of tears, or a nice long, cathartic vent session. For anybody who’s never experienced true friendship, their venting options are limited to misunderstanding family and emotionally detached friends, because it takes somebody who really loves you to sit there and listen to your problems for hours on end.

I, however, have the luxury of having such a friend. To have somebody you know accepts you and loves you unconditionally, no matter how many stupid decisions you make—and continue to make—or how many times you repeat the same story over and over and over again. Having a friend that knows you so well that they can solve your problems just by looking at it from a slightly different perspective, but will also sympathize with you and help you through the hardest of times, but laugh with you through the good ones.

You know you have an actual best friend when somewhere along the way your lives have become completely intertwined. Your parents are friends, you’re invited to each other’s family functions (and expected to attend), and your boyfriends are now BFF. We basically share everything from parents and siblings, to beds and clothes—but not food, my food is MINE. You walk into each other’s houses like you reside there, and help yourself to whatever you may possibly need. There is a level of complete comfort that those who don’t know what a true friend is could never possibly understand.

Fancy dinners and fake people are so painfully overrated when you have the option to sit home with your best friend, in sweatpants, and shamelessly bury yourself in Domino’s Pizza, your own personal pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for dessert, and a good scary movie that will undoubtedly keep you awake all night. True friendships are few and far between, which is why I cherish mine so much. Whether it turns out to be a good laugh, an ugly cry, or just a genuinely relaxing night where all we do is enjoy each other’s company, I will forever be thankful for my best friend. It doesn’t matter if they move halfway around the world, nothing can ever stand in the way of a true and genuine friendship, because at some point along the way, that friend stops being just a friend—they become family.

So once again, I say thank you. Thank you for being you and thank you for everything you do for me because nobody else could possibly put up with as much as you do. No one could ever replace you, and no one ever will. Friends until the end and far beyond that.

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson.