The problem with any long-distance relationship is that you don't get to see the person for months, or even years, at a time. But imagine if you've never seen this person face-to-face.

That's my, and my best friend's, reality for each other. But how can this be, you may be asking yourself. In today's society, we all know the internet is a miraculous, but scary, place to be. The internet is exactly where I met Sarah.

As a young writer at the age of 16, I needed to reach out, to put my work where other writers could read, critique, hate, and love it as if each piece was a published work for all the world to attack. That's where Wattpad.com came in.

This is a great place for writers of all genres to write and publish their work to be read by a community who wants to see you succeed. It was easy to make friends in this community. Your readers wanted to communicate with you, get to know you on a personal level, understand where your ideas came from. And as a reader, you felt the same, wanting to get this insider look into an extremely talented writer's mind.

But I didn't get to know Sarah because I read her work or she read mine. Rather, that happened after we became friends. I became friends with Sarah because I searched drag racing. I've been drag racing since I was ten years old. I'm a third generation racer, meaning my grandpa started racing, then introduced my dad to the sport who in turn introduced me.

Being so passionate about writing and racing, I wanted to see if there was anybody else in the community who shared those passions.

Sarah's username came up in the search. It was on like Donkey Kong after that. I messaged her. She messaged me. We built up a casual friendship of reading and commenting on each other's stuff, talking about our racing experiences, and asking for advice about writing or racing. Being on the internet, we were both very cautious about the information we distributed to each other. It took months before I would take the next step of our friendship. I gave her my phone number and told her when she felt comfortable she could text me. Her mom called me soon after that to verify I was who I said I was.

Now we text every day.

But we've never met. She lives in Michigan. I live in Illinois. We Skype every once in a while, call when we have too much to say to type out, and write letters just because. But face-to-face? Never. We've been friends for nearly four years now. We've had opportunities to meet up. But something always came up. A race or a family event keeping us from aligning our weekends to see each other.

Now, there is a fear that holds us back. We've never met. What if we are nothing like we seem in our texts? What if we actually hate each other? What if? What it? What if?

To be honest, this fear is a very real possibility. And, of course, we both deny that it will happen. But we've both also discussed the probability of us hating one another when the event finally happens. It's not a very high probability, we figure. But it's there nonetheless.

Does this lack of face-to-face communication weaken our friendship, I wonder. I only wonder for a second or two, before the conclusion pops to mind. No. We do lack some key components to friendship: quality time, pictures, knowing each other's family, eating each other's food, knowing the other friends that exist in their life, etc. But we certainly make up for it in other areas.

I've never been able to have someone, who I didn't meet at the race track, who completely understands racing in the same capacity as I do. Sarah does. I don't always share all my personal feelings of other people with my friends, because they may like that person. That isn't a fear with Sarah; I can be completely open with her. I don't have to worry about whether we hang out too much or not enough.

This type of friendship certainly isn't for the faint of heart. Texting is not the same as talking face to face. You don't get that emotional connection as quickly. Sometimes you can't tell if the other person is mad, sad, happy, or just neutral. You've really got to be clear on how your feeling and what you mean behind every word. There's typos and emojis and miscommunications. And to be honest, I don't know how often this type of stuff happens. We've never had a fight in our almost-four years of friendship. I can't say if this is because we just stop talking if we get angry, if we don't realize the other person feels upset by what is said, or if we just text everything out that makes the other person understand we are meaning to be hurtful.

But I can say without a doubt, Sarah is my best friend. I miss her when she goes on vacation and can't text. I ask for her advice on anything and everything. I know about her sister and she knows about mine. We share our familial problems, our friendship problems, our insecurities, our dreams, and just about everything in-between. I was excited for her when she told me she got accepted into the college she wanted, even though it moves her farther from me, rather than closer. We send Christmas and birthday presents, and random 'thinking-of-you' gifts. Sure, our friendship is unconventional, a bit frightening, and takes a lot of extra work that may not go into other friendships, but I wouldn't give it up for the easiest friendship with a neighbor.

Long-distance relationships consist of many problems, but they present so many rewards.