In early May, my best friend and I had to leave college and go home. Like any normal pair of best friends, the goodbye was sort of sad but still optimistic for the next time we would see each other. Unlike most pairs of best friends, I gave my best friend a big kiss and told him to have an amazing summer, I would see him in June.

That's what happens when your boyfriend is your best friend.

I was inspired to write this article because tonight, we spent an hour on the phone debating the cheapest way to get from North Carolina to New Hampshire. No matter how we do it, it's not going to be under $300. And we're doing it twice. He's visiting me in June for one weekend, and we're going on vacation together in August for eleven days. The process of actually buying the tickets went a little bit like this: I pulled out my credit card and began to make my first $300+ purchase. I stopped for a second and tried to decide if I really wanted to spend my first month of internship money just to get a cold from an airplane to see my boyfriend.

Of course I did.

The split second of indecision was filled with a full hour of excitement because I was going to see my best friend in less than a month.

I know I should be careful calling him my best friend. In our ever present societal need to compartmentalize relationships, it's often pretty frowned upon to call your boyfriend your best friend. It's often met with responses like, "did you abandon all of your girlfriends to be with him," or "when he dumps you, you won't have any friends." But contrary to popular belief on this issue, your boyfriend can in fact also be your best friend.

Here's why:

We keep our relationship separate from our other relationships.

Yes, he and I do our fair share of things together, but I have other people I can rely on as well. I maintain relationships outside of my romantic relationship just as effectively as I maintain my romantic relationship. It's a balancing act that really isn't as hard as some people make it out to be.

He understands me in a way platonic friends don't.

I'm not saying that there's no difference between my girlfriends and my boyfriend. There's a huge difference, but the person I've chosen as my closest companion knows things about me my platonic friends might not know. These things are often simple, like why I don't like my food to touch. I don't expect my boyfriend to know which shade of pink I like to wear to brunch and why I would never wear it to dinner, but he would know if I actually liked the shirt my friend got me for Christmas.

We're independent, but we still lift each other up.

The reality is, we're long distance for almost half of the year so I can't bother him 100 percent of the time for attention. I don't have time to be needy even when we're 10 minutes from each other. I'm working really hard to get my education and become a productive person, and he's working really hard to do the same thing. Neither one of us have time to dote on each other, text 24/7, get mad about friends of the opposite sex, or really anything unnecessary. He's my best friend because we understand when we need to talk about something serious, but otherwise we're just really good friends.

We can admit when we're wrong.

When I'm arguing with a friend, I often have a really hard time letting things go. I like to be right, even if I'm not, and even if I've realized halfway through an argument that I'm not right. With him, I don't push arguments. I can look like an idiot in front of him and admit that I'm wrong and he still accepts me.

We're each others biggest fans.

If I had to chose one reason why my boyfriend is my best friend, this is the reason. No matter what, I've got him to tell me I'm the best, and he's got me to tell him he's the best.