Amidst the hard bass of music and loud chatter of the house party, I was lucky enough to strike up a conversation with a guy who was so insanely personable. How it happened, I’ll never know, but out of the senseless blur of faces, his struck me. It was so gentle and understanding. You know when you meet someone for the first time, but it feels as if you’re talking as if you’ve known each other since kindergarten? That was my conversation with this guy. It was raw. It was comfortable. It was hilarious. It was everything I needed to hear that evening.
I’m never all too open about my relationships, especially friendships. I cherish my friendships so deeply that I usually can’t find the words to describe them. As an only child, a good friend was never something to take for granted, even as a little kid. To this day, my friends are the people that add so much happiness and love into my life.
Our conversation went on and ended up somewhere I didn’t normally talk about with strangers I meet at parties. He asked about my best friend, and I told him how incredible she is. I told him how similar we were, how we met, every aspect I could recall off the top of my head. Again, when it comes to friendships, I’m not prime with the words thing. He then went on to ask why she’s my best friend, followed by a terribly nervous giggle. Now honestly, I was just going to walk away at this point. I obviously knew why she was my best friend! We love spending time together and have supported each other through thick and thin. I can’t even remember how I answered him because I thought his question was just too out there. But the next question he would pose changed the way I looked at my friendship in the most incredible way possible. He asked, “Friends are supposed to build you up, make you a better person, right?”
I never thought I would completely reevaluate the meaning of friendship. I began to think about the unfathomable. My friendships are so much more than company or entertainment for that matter. My friends are the people that make me want to get up in the morning and do something with myself. They are the ones who push boundaries, encouraging me to try the extraordinary. My friends make me a better person with each and every day, especially my best friend. She teaches me things that I never thought I would need to know. When she supports me, she helps me to love myself, something that is so hard to do although it is so simple. She lifts me up and shows me what it means to be a true and sincere friend. I only hope I do that for her, and so many others that I am so lucky to have in my life.
With these thoughts racing through my mind, my conversation with the boy was coming to a close. We were soon drawn back into the buzz of the party, but I kept asking myself that question for the rest of that night, and for many weeks to follow. I was finally forming words for those unspeakable yet such special friendships of mine. I haven’t seen this boy since meeting him early on in the summer. I know his name, I’ve seen him on Facebook, even have his Snapchat. But I think I’m going to leave our conversation just where it was weeks ago. That evening, he made me a better person. I guess that means...we’re friends.
