Growing up, your best friend was the one who stuck by you through those rough preadolescent years, your support system during the ups and the downs in becoming a young adult, the one that helped you become the person you are today. Going separate ways, you may think to yourself, “How will I go on?”

High school was the easy part. Surrounded by all the same places and all the same faces day in and day out. However, the map suddenly seems to become much larger when you and your bestie decide which faraway land to travel to for higher education (sadly, universities aren’t all in the same school district). Going to get ice cream at unreasonable times at night, or binge watching dumb movies on Netflix, or even just grabbing Starbucks is much harder with hundreds of miles between the two of you.

Everyone knows that long distance relationships are difficult, even if we haven’t personally experienced one. We’ve all seen the cliché movies where the happy couple gets separated and has to go through all of these unnecessary hardships, but I’m going to tell you a secret… It actually doesn’t have to be like that. Just follow these few easy steps to ensure you and your best friend survive the next four years without being directly at one another’s side.

• Driving to each other every day is just unreasonable (you’ll want to but gas prices disagree), so you’ll have to send ugly snaps at least once a day, so you can make sure they’re still ugly.
• You both live two different, crazy busy lives now so you’ll have to set aside a time to call each other. 3 a.m. sounds good, right?
• Don’t think they’re tuning you out when you talk about your obnoxious roommate just because they have no idea who she is. I assure you they want to know, it definitely makes them feel better about their obnoxious roommate.
• Don’t think they won’t fight that guy for you because he screwed with your feelings. That is not okay. With priority mail, a strongly worded letter will arrive in one to two business days.
• You’re both in new places with all new faces but that will just make them appreciate your face more. Don’t be alarmed when your insta is blown up with likes on all your selfies.
• You’ll still need them to smack some sense into you. Don’t think they’ll go easy on you just because they can’t physically do it.

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” who knew such a cheesy saying could actually be factual? Best friends are special and they’re hard to find, so hold on to them. Going to a different college than my best friend is tough but it can be done (shout out to technological advances for enabling this friendship to survive). I promise, the two of you will always pick back up right where you left off.