I met my best friend, Dominique, on my first day of 1st grade. I remember asking her if she wanted to be best friends and from that day it was simple, we were best friends. We had sleepovers, we joined clubs together, and most importantly we were there for each other.

I mean who is lucky enough to meet someone on their first day at a new school, ask that person if they want to be best friends and it actually works out? But apparently, it was meant to be because 14 years later, we can still depend on each other even though we live in two different states for most of the year.

Although we were super close and spent a lot of time together, we enjoyed doing different activities. For instance, at age ten Dominique was more into sports while I was more into reading the 'Twilight' saga. But our differences were never something that I cared about. Our friendship was about spending time together, supporting one another, and having fun.

The only time that our differences were truly brought to my attention in a negative light was when I was in the 5th grade. Dominique and I were in class one day and our teacher said to us, “I don’t understand why you two are friends, you are nothing alike.”

I guess looking back it was easy for an outsider to spot how our personalities and interests were different. But still, I did not really understand the point that she was trying to make. What did our differences have to do with our friendship? Our friendship was about the love, the respect, and the connection that we had with each other.

Ultimately as I got older, I realized that our teacher was just trying to tear us down. She even made efforts to keep us apart by not letting us work together in class. Every other student in the class got to choose the partner that they wanted to work with to do class work but our teacher denied me and Dominique that opportunity. We were good students and did our work, but for some reason, our friendship was a problem for her.

While I did not understand what the comments and actions of our teacher were insinuating when I was ten years old, her words and actions stuck with me and helped me define what friendship was really about as I got older.

I mean, who tells two kids that they are “too different” to be friends? Obviously, someone who does not understand anything about friendship or being a kind human being. Were Dominique and I just supposed to stop being friends because we liked different things?

Teachers should want to teach children to respect each other's differences. They should want their students to live in a world where differences are celebrated and not used as tools to discriminate.

None of my friends are exactly like me. Of course, I share some interests with my friends but I never go out searching for a friend the likes all the things that I like. Every person has their own background, their own experiences, and their own unique perspectives.

I would never want my friends to be exactly like me. I admire my friends for the aspects of themselves that are unique and make them individuals because I always manage to learn something new or I am positively influenced to look at things from a different perspective.

Friendship is not about simply about being similar, there is so much more to it. Dominique and I are still best friends to this day not because we are so alike or that we agree on everything. We are still friends because we support each other and when we are together we can be 100% ourselves.

Being Dominique's friend has taught so many things that I would have never known without her and her friendship has made me a better person. I admire her athleticism, her kindness, her loving personality, her intelligence, and her hard work ethic. Honestly, I could not have met a better person on my first day of school because she helped teach me what being a best friend really means.