I wasn't looking for a best friend when I started college last Fall. I was perfectly content with making a few acquaintances, a few friendly faces to wave and smile at while I was walking to class, and leaving it at that. I was a firm believer that I had friends, I had best friends, and I didn't need any more than the ones I had at home. I think part of me was afraid to put myself out there, talk to new people and go through that awkward phase of getting to know someone for the first time. "Can I make this joke in front of them?" "Will they find this story funny?" "When can I start acting like myself around them?"

Most of us haven't had to go through the process of making new friends since high school. I haven't had to go through it since elementary school. My childhood best friend and I always made our friends together: even when we went to different middle schools, her friends became my friends and vice versa. I've always had a partner to go through the process, and college was the first time I've really ever been on my own.

My first semester, I managed to step out of my comfort zone and meet some really amazing people. After all of our dinner dates, study sessions, and city excursions, I was surprised when I found myself missing everyone when I came home for winter break. But I still felt like I was missing something. Even after meeting such great people, I still missed the comfort of having a group of people to stand with in a crowded room. So when spring semester began, I decided to rush a sorority.

College is this crazy place that takes you out of your comfort zone to try new things. If you asked me a year ago whether I was even considering Greek Life in college, the answer would have been a resounding no way. If you asked me a year ago if I thought I'd make a best friend in college, the answer would have been no way. Now, nearly six months later, I have a group of girls that are like a family to me, and I managed to somehow stumble across a girl who l'm lucky enough to call my best friend.

I don't remember when exactly we became friends. For weeks, you were just the girl who attended the same sorority meetings. And then, it seems like all at once, you were the one I went to with boy troubles, you were my first text in the morning, you were the only one who I'd talk to even on my worst days. We would skip class to have time to get lunch/dinner together (sorry Mom), crashing on my couch became a regular occurrence, and I know the route to your apartment as if it were my own. When either one of our phones die, our friends know they can reach us by texting the other. If neither one of us are responding to texts, it's just assumed we're most likely napping before we stay up until two in the morning watching old music videos together. If one of us RSVPs for plans, everyone knows that we're a package deal.

But each of us are still our own person. Rap isn't your first choice of music to listen to...or you second or your third. And maybe you enjoy country music a lot more than I do. And maybe we could never go to that camping music festival together that you love so much because I'm not a tent person and I hate dirt. But because of you, I've changed since starting college, and I like who I've become. I'm more politically conscious, I enjoy our intellectual what-if conversations, and I appreciate our comfortable silences that we don't feel the need to fill.

We understand each other's humor, but we're not afraid to criticize the nature of the joke. We can agree on a place to eat, but we know we're going to order completely different meals because we have completely different tastes. And when I need a cup of coffee, I know you'll be down for the walk, but there's a zero percent chance that you'll be ordering one of your own. For every throwback Jonas Brothers song that you play, there's always a Justin Bieber one to follow. You won't skip the G-Eazy songs on my playlist, I won't skip The 1975, and when One Direction comes on there's a mutual understanding that we must sing every word until it's over.

I didn't think I'd be meeting the friends and family of a girl that I met in college. I didn't think all of my friends from home would be dying to meet you. I didn't think I'd be spending my twentieth birthday with you, Halloween with you, or traveling the world with you in just a few short weeks.

I didn't think I'd make a friend like you. But I'm so, so happy that I did.