33 Reasons Why You’re My Best Friend Forever

1. You know how to listen. It sounds like a simple task, but very few people are as attentive as you. You sit with me while I speak, and you follow all my words, and you wait until I finish before responding. Sometimes you don’t even need to reply — your concentration is all I need.

2. You let me vent, but you tell me when I’m obsessing. You’re an amazing listener, but even you have a limit if my thoughts are spiraling out of control. You let me know when I’m overanalyzing something so I can deal with it in a healthier way.

3. I trust you with all my deep secrets, and you trust me with all of yours. You know every embarrassing thing that’s happened to me, and I know every weird thing about you. I never hesitate to tell you something, because I know you will take it to your grave. We would never air each other’s dirty laundry, no matter what happens — our history runs way too deep.

4. If I need to call you at 3am, you will answer. If I don’t reach you, I can leave you a voicemail and I know you will call me the second you wake up. If I send you a string of demanding texts past midnight I know that you will be amused, and not annoyed.

5. We can make fun of each other and never take offense. You’ll always laugh at my inability to walk up stairs without panting and my disastrous attempts at styling my hair and my tendency to wear two different-colored socks. But it’s cool, because I will always mock your love for One Direction.

6. We help each other work on parts of our personality we want to change. You remind me that I often apologize unnecessarily, and that I need to be more confrontational, and that I should stop feeling guilty over things I can’t control, and I remind you to not be so hard on yourself.

7. You always have my back. If someone is talking shit, you will be there on my defense like white on rice.

8. You bring out my goofy side. We can talk to each other in weird accents for hours, have spontaneous dance sessions, and take the most ridiculous pictures of one another, just for the LOLs.

9. You let me borrow your clothes without question. You still let me wear your tights even though I ruined one of your nicest pairs on my drunken 21st birthday.

10. You support my relationships. You may not think he’s right for me, you may find him odd, you may tell me I can do better — but as long as he treats me well and is a good person, you’re happy that I’m happy.

11. You let me sleep in your bed when I don’t want to sleep alone. Even though I usually snore and hog all the blankets. (Sorry!)

12. I’m never afraid to be honest with you, and you’re never afraid to be honest with me, even if the truth will hurt. If you think a guy is just not that into me, you won’t come up with hundreds of excuses and “what ifs” to temporarily make me feel better. You’ll be real, which is much more helpful anyway. We’re way too close to sugarcoat our opinions.

13. You know just how to cheer me up when I’m feeling sad. You’ll play that one song, or suggest we watch that one movie, or take me to that one amazing café. You’ll comfort me if I want, or give me space if I want to be alone. Somehow you always know what to do, and I am forever grateful.

14. You can get me out of a seriously bad mood. I don’t know how you do it, but you’re always radiating happy energy, and it never fails to make me feel better.

15. You’ve seen me at my worst, and you still love me. When my heart was broken, it was the worst of times. I wasn’t myself. Luckily you recognized that, and gave me time to heal.

16. You are an excellent judge when it comes to romantic interests. You have a skill for reading people, and can always tell which ones are worth pursuing.

17. We can hang out for days on end and never get sick of each other. We could see each other every single day, and each day would be like an awesome new adventure.

18. When we see each other for the first time in a while, it’s as if we were never separated. I lived on the opposite side of the world for a year and a half and we didn’t have many chances to keep in touch, but when I came back, it felt as if I had never left.

19. Somehow all our old inside jokes are still hilarious. (And I bet we’ll be saying “it’s just like a bed!!” until we’re grandmas.)

20. When you’re in a relationship, I still see you all the time. You’re not one of those friends that disappears when they have a significant other. We still meet for drinks, get dinner, etc. In fact, usually, your SO and I become great friends anyway, so the three of us hang out on the regular.

21. You go out of your way to help me whenever I need it — whether it’s rereading a cover letter I am about to send to a dream job, or picking out the perfect outfit for my date later. And I will always do the same.

22. You always give me your most genuine advice. You never give me vague expressions, like “it’ll all work out.” Instead, you’ll say, “I think if you do this, that will lead to…”

23. You care about my family. And yours is really important to me as well.

24. You seem to know what’s good for me more than I do. Clothes, makeup, who to date, careers…

25. Jealousy is never felt in our friendship. We’re happy for each other, and we’re always down to celebrate each other’s successes.

26. Sometimes all we need is eye contact to communicate. I just need to give you ‘that look’ and you’ll know exactly what I’m thinking. This is especially useful when we’re with a group of people and cannot openly express our opinion.

27. You can often sense what I’m feeling even when I don’t express it directly. Just like the magic of our silent eye contact, sometimes you can just read my emotions by the way I’m sitting on the couch.

28. You’re the best wing-woman. When I’m chatting to someone, you know exactly when to jump in and help break the ice, and when to wander away and let us talk alone.

29. I trust your gut instincts sometimes more than my own. I’ll usually ask you first what to do before taking action, because you’ve proven to me countless times that your gut speaks in gold.

30. We rarely fight. And if we do, we apologize, learn from it, and move on. I couldn’t even imagine staying mad at you for longer than a day. It would just feel weird.

31. You believe that I deserve the best, and I believe that you deserve the best. We recognize each other’s hard work, and know that we are worthy of what we want, be it careers, relationships, etc.

32. Getting ready together to go out is often more fun than the actual party. And by “often” I mean 99 percent of the time. We’ll blast Daft Punk while we try on a million different dresses and dance around and stalk Facebook and by eleven we’re tipsy enough from all our homemade impromptu cocktails to finally head out.

33. After a breakup, you’ll watch cheesy rom-coms with me as we devour Ben and Jerry’s and you know it’s grossly cliché but you don’t care. You love me that much.