Friendship is a strange concept. You get told your whole life not to talk to strangers, but in order to meet new people and make new friends that exactly what you have to do. And even after however many years of meeting new people and getting to know them, for some people it takes from kindergarten to college to find true friendship in people; even after graduating college, people can still realize who is really there for them and who is not.

What's really crazy is how people can have best friends for so long. Growing up, I had many friends and I still connect with some today. But I can’t really say I ever had a friend where I could 100 percent open up to about anything and everything. Don't get me wrong—I felt comfortable with my friends and I still do, and I have gone to them when I need advice or help with a situation and they have been there for me. I am so thankful for that. It’s just that any friend I had always already had their best friend; I was just kind of there I guess you could say.

This is coming from someone who was the one in the group who would have to walk behind everyone else when in social situations, who would have to sit in the way back of the van and not be heard. I was the one who people talked smack about to others in the group, the one who the parents loved but didn’t see much of. I felt like an outsider and sometimes. I still do today.

Now please remember I am in no way saying that the friends I had didn't include me in anything. Maybe it’s because of other aspects of my personal life that I have felt this way. I know I am not the only one in the world to feel this way which is my point here. Just because I feel this way does not mean I am not thankful for my friends, that I expect more from them or that they were bad friends. To any of my friends reading this, I am so beyond happy you are in my life and I wouldn’t want it another way.

The message from this article is not that you must spend 24/7 with your best friend or that there are certain qualifications one must have in order to be considered my best friend. The message is that your best friend may have a different best friend, he or she may drift apart from you. But if you take anything overall from this article it should be that despite what the movies depict of friendship, you don’t need to have just one. I have been blessed with four very amazing people from my middle school/high school days that I will continue to cherish throughout my life. Moving away for college makes it very hard to keep connected with high school friends, but if they're really your friends, it won’t be impossible.