#bffgoals

Traveling with you has been such a blessing. ❤️✨

Photo by Isabella ConnelleyandBethan Mooney 

Maya Britbart, 19, on the gift of a BFF.

I’m a firm believer in indie movie moments: moments in a person’s life that are so emotionally and aesthetically perfect they could form the basis of a short film. The lighting is just right, you feel that warm sense of comfortable abandon and you look around with wonder in your heart, eager to preserve everything. Sometimes, you’re sitting across from a girl drinking hot sangria in the middle of a chilly Venetian spring, your mind spinning with architecture and a traveller’s high, and you know you’re falling in love. Not in a romantic way, but in that intangible, all-knowing kind of way that lets you know you’ve found someone really freaking special. You don’t want to jinx it by admitting it to yourself, but you may have found a best friend.

I met my best friend at an important junction in my short life; I had just gotten out of my first relationship, had almost no friends that were still in high school, and found myself travelling through Italy on a school trip, hopeful but lost in my own head. We were sharing a room for the three weeks and, although we had met before, spent the time discovering each other in a whole new way across the Italian landscape. I played guitar for her in a hotel lobby and introduced her to musical theatre, while she showed me new bands and taught me how to love my body more openly than I ever had before.

Every moment consisted of finding something new and wonderful about each other, and after we made the long journey home and parted ways, I spent the entire weekend missing her and debating whether I could text her, rather than revelling in some much-needed alone time after three weeks of intense socialising. That was my indication that whatever this was, it was important.

What ensued was one indie movie moment after another, where we would often catch ourselves staring at each other and wondering how we got so lucky as to enter each other’s orbits. We’re both children of refugees and have a deep tie to our respective cultures, something which translates beautifully into an intense interest in everything the other person is, says, or does. She recently came to a Shabbat dinner (a weekly family dinner that we, as Israelis, preserve as a cultural norm), and as I sat there fuming at the slew of sexist bullshit coming out of my grandfather’s mouth, she leaned over to me and said I know you’re angry, but this is wonderful and I can’t wait to come back – just another reminder that this is the most meaningful relationship I’ve ever been in. This is someone I actively want to keep in my life, and I can actually see myself committing to in the long term. We don’t often hold our friendships to such a standard, but working with someone with the aim mutual betterment, enjoyment and care seems, at least to me, to be the ultimate commitment regardless of the level of physical intimacy.

Perhaps it’s the optimist in me, but being so closely intertwined with another person without involving sex has allowed me to understand so much more about what I want from life. Because the predominant mode of our relationship is intellectual, it’s as though the crux of our interaction is to inspire and to be inspired by one another and to challenge each other’s thoughts and beliefs in an eye-opening and fruitful way.

 I’ve become more productive, intentionally overloading myself because she trusts, and so I trust, that I can handle it. I’m more fiercely pursuing things like photography and theatre even if they cause me additional study-related stress, because as a biomedical student I’m not ‘meant’ to have room for hobbies. I’m creating more movie moments for myself, because when you have someone who believes in you so intently it becomes just a little bit easier to push yourself, knowing that if you fail someone will be there to break your fall and everything will be alright.

This is what happened when someone entered my life at the perfect moment and saved me from a whirlpool of potential loneliness and self-doubt, someone who taught me the importance of self-love and told me that who I am is more than good enough. She gave me a new appreciation for art, love and a wonder of the people around me that grows every day. Such a concept never fails to make me feel overwhelmingly lucky, because as a child you are often told about growing up and meeting the person you’re going to marry - finding the one - but no one ever prepared me for the joy of a best friend.

Close friendship informs so much of how we view the world, from our most basic morals to our ability to engage in awkward small-talk, and yet we take it for granted because our best friends are just a part of our lives. But unadulterated acceptance and mutuality are unwaveringly powerful regardless of who you are, and a best friend is something that you not only need, but undoubtedly deserve. I hope that everyone gets to feel it at some point in time the way that I have, however clichéd the notion may seem. Because when you do, the lighting seems just right, everything is emotionally and aesthetically perfect, and you can feel the movie beginning to play all around you.

Read next: “Navigating sex when you’re awkward” >>>

Bark and Bite

GBBFF!!! (Greenbay bestfriend) before the rave than what we look like when we rave and than the drive home after the rave.

May I present to you? The chat between me and my bff

Beginning: *few heart emojis then and there*

4 hours later: *aggressive pick-up lines and heart memes*

Sweeet sweeet victory -Limpnoodle

Missy Minks and Audrey Rose

Who said you are safer with a friend?