For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had one best friend that’s a girl and one best friend that is a guy. It’s like Lizzie McGuire with Miranda and Gordo (but maayybbeee that’s a bad example since Gordo is in love with Lizzie… bear with me here). It just works. You have a gal pal who gets where you’re coming from, and a guy friend to give your life a healthy dose of testosterone.

Having a guy friend is pretty awesome as far as I’m concerned. You have someone to tell you that you’re definitely being crazy. Instead of your gal friends speculating about what you did wrong in a relationship, a guy friend can probably tell you exactly what you did that was crazy. A guy friend can also be awesome for helping you get out of a funk, because they don’t like dwelling on drama the way girls do, so they’ll probably just change the subject and distract you.

The only time having a guy as a best friend gets weird is when he gets a girlfriend. Not because I care that he has a girlfriend, but because in most cases, the girlfriend is weird that he has a best friend that’s a girl.

For example, one of my best guy friends and I have been friends for about 6 years. He lives on the other side of the country now, but I still pretty much tell him everything and can rely on him to give advice or send me a goofy snapchat when my day is really sucking. During our sophomore year of college, he was dating a girl. I had tried to befriend her once or twice but she always seemed standoffish so I let bygones be bygones. As long as she didn’t care that we were friends, I just kind of rode with it. But eventually, she started getting weird whenever he and I would hang out.

After a while of pitching temper tantrums, he got pretty tired of the drama and started thinking about breaking up with her. Then, because she was desperate to fix it, she came to me asking for help with their relationship. At that point, it was too late.

So what’s my point here? If she had accepted that her boyfriend was my best friend and had tried to be friends with me, she never would have driven an awkward wedge into their relationship. Instead of getting mad that we were friends, she could have used it to her benefit. Like, tell me what you want for Christmas and I can put in a good word or something. Man, I don’t know.

Now, let me address the flip side. I dated a guy for two years that had a best friend that was a girl. Trust goes a long way in relationships, and I never doubted that he loved me. I knew he would never do anything to hurt me, and I knew what his intentions were with me. If you can’t say the same about your boyfriend, then him having a best friend that is a girl is probably the least of your concerns. When he went with his best friend to dinner and they hung out without me, I knew I didn’t have anything to worry about. They had been friends way before we ever met, and as far I can tell, they’re still friends and we’ve been broken up two years.

Relationships aren’t guaranteed to last, but when you’re dating someone, you really need to accept their friends, too. I’ve had some of the same best friends over the course of multiple relationships, so until someone really appears to be permanent and marriage material, my best friends are going to be a priority. Let your boyfriend be best friends with a girl. If you’re really smart, try to be her friend, too. You might end up with a really good friend, or at the least, someone to defend you whenever you and your boyfriend aren’t seeing eye-to-eye.