When it comes to our friends, quality is definitely more important than quantity. However, sometimes we are lucky enough to find a large, high-quality group of people we just can't help but love.

There may be a few downsides that accompany having a large friend group (think anything organizational), but the many benefits easily outweigh any difficulties that having a bigger group of friends presents.

Now, there are the obvious benefits (more friends, bigger support network, more gifts on your birthday, etc), but here I present the hidden perks of being part of a large friend group.

1. The Group Chat.

Whether the members of your squad use GroupMe, G-chat, or miraculously all have iPhones and can use iMessage, your group chat has been and continues to be your safe haven. You can post anything you want in there, be it a complaint, a not-so-humble brag, or a request. You were tight before the group chat, but now you're all best buds!

courtesy of www.chatterous.com

Yes, you have been known to giggle at inappropriate times, aggressively type a response, and ignore the face-to-face conversation you had been engaged in, but the Group Chat is love, the Group Chat is life. Anyone who doesn't understand your obsession with the Group Chat isn't part of something as cool and time-consuming. Yes, now is the time to pity those people.

2. The Pleasure Necessity of Name Tags

When you all get together with your families, there are so many people present that you get to revel in the necessity of wearing name tags!

When you have those important meet-the-parents moments, your parents spend the entire time working to keep everyone's names straight. Well, thanks to name tags, problem solved! No more asking someone their name 3 times in 30 minutes. Instead, just sneak a peak at their name tag and play off your forgetfulness. If only orientation weekend/first week of classes implemented this strategy . . .

We all enjoy the feeling of importance that accompanies a name tag, don't try to deny it. Here you have an excuse to pretend to be as important as a name tag suggests. Embrace the opportunity.

3. Fake Social Media Popularity

You feel instantly popular when you post on social media since you have at least 10 guaranteed Facebook and Instagram likes, and 5 favorites on Twitter.

Thanks for the undeserved confidence, Squad!

4. A Guaranteed Partner in Crime

There's always at least one person willing to join in on any activity.

Be it Swing Dance Night at the on-campus "nightclub," joining you on the swing set once the sun finally comes out, or grudgingly posing with you in those cheesy cardboard cutouts we all pretend to hate, someone will be there to indulge you and participate in whatever activity has struck your fancy.

5. No Lonely Meals

It doesn't matter which dining hall you are feeling that night, you'll always have someone who hasn't eaten yet and is willing to join you. These friends of yours have already decided you're worth a trek across campus, so you can request your favorite eatery without fear they will refuse based on laziness.

6. An Automatic Date

When it comes to a single guy/gal and formals, a slightly awkward evening with a person who you might be semi-interesed in but aren't quite sure about isn't the only option.

If the above scenario doesn't interest you, you have a fun, no-pressure date who is a guaranteed good time.

Most everyone loves dances and excuses to dress up, so if you're too nervous to ask the guy you've been crushing on all semester or that girl you see everyday in the dining hall, no worries!

A date from your friend group will be thrilled to put on a suit or dress, and they aren't going to care about how dorky they look as you guys jump up and down to "Shut up and Dance With Me."

I mean, your group probably cleans up really well when they're not 3 cups of coffee into a midterm paper. Just saying.

7. At Least Half a Team

Even if part of the group is uninterested, you're still well on the way towards a full team for any sport.

When you have 14 people to pressure into joining your team, you're bound to wrangle together some extra players.

Plus, they'll take weird team photos when you win!

8. The Group Picture Candids

Taking a group picture may be difficult, but you get some hella great candids in the process.

You know what I'm talking about. I know you do. They're the pictures you save for National Friendship Day on Instagram or the ones you pull up when you miss your friends more than is socially acceptable.

They're the best photos you have and there's no denying it.

9. The Snapchat Screenshots

Thanks to your friend group, you have some truly glorious snapchat screenshots from a wide variety of friends!

If you ever wonder whether your friends are as weird as you are, just scroll through your camera roll. When you stumble across that screenshot from 4 months ago, you'll remember that your similar weirdness united you as friends in the first place.

And, yes. You are aware they have similarly glorious ones of you. . .

10. An Immediate Response

When you need someone, in good times or in bad, you'll have a whole crew who responds to your text/call with:

Courtesy of www.tumblr.com

Even if a handful are busy, there's still another whole handful of people left to bring ice cream to your dorm room or take you out for pizza

11. The Pleasantly Crowded Pictures

Sure, you're a big enough group that your photos are already filled with too many heads for the frame, but don't forget about everyone's friends outside of the group. Yes, indeed, you all have awesome friends outside the group! Fortunately, you love to be surrounded by as many awesome people as you can. "The more friends the merrier!" has always been the motto, and your pictures make you look way more popular than you actually are.

12. The Surprising Transformation

This is probably the best one, because once you realize it, it sweeps you off your feet.

At some point in your friendship, you guys will start to look back and think, "Gosh, how did we get here?"

Then, as you sit around and re-tell your first impression stories, you'll start to think back to how much has changed in your lives since you became friends.

You've grown up and you've grown together, and you can barely believe the transformations you see in front of you, whether they're individual or for the whole crew.

You see, your group of friends somehow went from being "those weird kids in my bio class" to "the people who I'd do absolutely anything for."

You can barely remember a time when you sat through a class without making that best friend kind of eye contact with them, yet for the first few months of knowing each other, you hardly knew their names.

Now, they're the ones you see every day during the school year and yet you're still always excited to see them. It feels weird to think of a time when you weren't a large part of each other's lives, but it feels weirder to think of a future without them.

You can all joke about the future and the necessity of crazy big wedding parties to fit everyone in, but somewhere along the way you truly became more than just a huge group of friends who met by chance.

You became a family chosen by choice.

And no matter the difficulties or moments of trial, there are infinitely many more perks of staying together than there would ever be if you stayed apart.