Everyone has that friend out there who has opened their eyes to so many different perspectives. It’s amazing what happens between two people when a certain level of comfort and closeness is achieved. It’s almost like a light goes off, and your brain screams, “YES, I’LL TAKE THAT ONE!” Friendship is a funny evolution of events and feelings. Somewhere down the road it probably begins with small talk in class, or meeting briefly through friends of friends. But something about that person sets them apart from all of the other people you run into throughout your day. Something clicked between the two of you, which is why you’re now getting lunch, texting, and confiding in that person and not the other twenty-seven people in your class.

You bond over a silly inside joke, or an impossibly tough class that you may not survive if not for your new friend. But then, before long, a true friendship is formed. Someone who was once just another face in a crowd, who could have just stayed that girl or guy you sat next to in the worst class of your college career, is now someone who is such a significant part of your life.

I found my first true friend in high school. Picture this: it’s a chilly September day in Pennsylvania. It was only about a month into my high school career. My girls from middle school convinced me to go with them to this guy’s house to hangout. I would have done literally anything to get out of going, considering I had a fake baby attached to my hip. I’m not talking a silent little baby doll, I’m talking a needy, crying, diaper-wearing baby doll that I was “taking care of” for the weekend as part Child Development class. I wasn’t exactly the most confident 16 year old around, and now you were asking me to meet new, cute boys with a fake plastic doll in my hands? This was going to be the worst night of my life.

Well silly me because that was the night that I found my person. There were many other guys there, and many other girls, many of whom I knew very well but something between me and the goof on the trampoline who I didn’t know at all, stuck. Fast forward six years later, and we are still stuck. No I’m not talking stuck boyfriend and girlfriend stuck, I’m not talking attached at the hip stuck, but I’m talking friends for life. We are two polar opposites of each other but that’s been the best part of it all. Our individual upbringings and our life experiences were just so different. Yet that is what each of us brings to the friendship as we map out for each other the highways and byways of our newest realizations, our latest experiences, and the newest cast of characters that have come into our lives.

Without even trying but just by letting our guards down and welcoming each other into our worlds we both definitely learned a new perspective, and a thing or two about a way of life that was otherwise so foreign to each of us. I was raised in a non-traditional, slightly wacky, Jewish family. You think I would have any idea what it’s like attending a youth group at the church I have passed every day since I was born? No. But with a real friend, you can go anywhere. The confidence in the friendship is what gave me the confidence to step outside of my comfort zone and go. And that crazy, rock concert he may be slightly dragged me to was one of the most out there but interesting experiences I have had and will definitely remember forever. Even those small events open my eyes and perspective was gained just by having a person show me their world.

High school me wanted familiarity and predictability. I wanted to stay in my comfort zone, doing my things, passing on the foreign ways of others. As I have moved along in my years I have come to realize how valuable new perspective and new experiences truly are.

The thing about this relationship is that it begins to transcend the daily. It doesn't matter so much that you don't see this person every week or every month. You turn to the certainty of this relationship when you seek the comfort and stability of things that you can count on without question and without doubt. You draw from the comfort of knowing that you are not completely alone. The soft spot that you have for this person is where you secretly hold the belief that this one is for life. And that is where all of your differences pale in the face of the very thing that you share. A real friendship.