You have your childhood friends, your work friends, your gym friends, your party friends, and then there’s your nursing friends (if you’re lucky- they will all be the same person). I’m not talking about the friends you make on the job, I’m talking about the friends that also willingly signed themselves up to go through the hell known as nursing school. You can try and try to explain to your family and non-nursing major friends how unbearable and emotionally taxing your workload is, and you may get some sympathy here and there, but the only people who truly understand how shitty your life currently is, are those who are going through it with you.

One of the best things involved (or lack-thereof) in a nursing friendship, is the non-existence of boundaries. Was your poop oddly colored? Do you have a parasite growing out of your head? Are you convinced you have an STD? Awesome! Let’s sit around and talk about all of the signs and symptoms of every possible disease you could have, come up with a wildly incorrect diagnosis, and then all take a field trip to an actual health care professional so they can tell us how wrong we were. And oddly enough, the most exciting part of our day is accompanying our friends to the doctor’s office and being in the room when they ask- “when was your last bowel movement?”

You may be judged at every other time and place in your life, but the one place you will not be judged is with your nursing friends. If we have an 8am exam, you better believe we did not go to bed until at least 3am. So yes, I will be rolling out of bed in my pajamas, dark circles under my eyes, hair hasn’t been brushed in days, and I may not remember the last time I showered- but everyone else in the classroom will look exactly the same way. And no one cares how atrocious your breath smells, because we are all more concerned with the 100+ drugs we were supposed to have memorized for the exam (which we don't).

Nursing friends are some of the best friends you will ever have. You will see more of these friends than you see your family. You will learn every little thing about them. What they like, who they hate, how they organize their notes, which highlighter is their favorite, what time of the night they start to get hangry- and what snacks they bring (hopefully for the whole group) to alleviate that issue. They will be the ones cheering you on to go through that one last PowerPoint, even when they don’t believe they can do it themselves. They will take an hour out of their study time, just to make sure you understand a difficult concept. And, above all, they will make studying fun- yes; it is possible (with the right people).

All I’m saying is- if you want a friend who is a workaholic, very emotionally distressed, and knows every word to every episode of "Grey’s Anatomy" – get yourself a nursing friend.