In elementary school, adults told me not to talk to strangers on the internet. I was never one follow the rules, so of course I would be the one to have almost all my good friendships be online. I’m still alive and relatively well, elementary school guidance counselor.  

I did nothing during the summer; I never had friends, my family couldn’t afford vacation, we only ever visited family – and I was kind of over it. It had been 13 years of boring summers in my life. Because I had no friends in real life to talk to, I turned to social media for refuge. Because I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, I was unaware of what I was getting myself into when I joined Twitter. I got two things out of it that I didn’t expect: one, regret and two, a best friend.

In the summer of 2016 I was at the peak of my ugly phase, so it only made sense that I had Twitter. What do emo 13-year-olds do on Twitter? Get into arguments about politics they don’t understand? Stalk their favorite celebrities? Rant about some stupid stuff because they have no friends or a therapist? The answer is: yes. But, I decided to join a ton of group chats with a bunch of lame losers like me. Who would have guessed that I would gain anything from it?

I was probably the largest loser out of all the losers, because I don’t think any of them acknowledged that I was even there. Because of that, it caught my attention right away when someone actually, genuinely, noticed my existence. A girl named Britney was the first person in the group chat to talk to me. I was more timid than I am today, so it scared me a little when she unexpectedly greeted me. My first thought when we met wasn’t, Hmm … This is going to be my best friend.

Outside of that group chat, Britney and I talked on SnapChat. We made inside jokes instantly, and it really didn’t feel like we had just met. I don’t remember if we even had anything in common besides our sense of humor at the time. At my mom’s baby shower, I payed more attention to talking to her than my mom. I talked to her every day, and whenever something happened in my life, she was the person I would go to.

As we continued to talk to each other, we grew closer – even though we live more than 1,000 miles apart. We eventually left the lame group chat full of people I don’t talk to or even remember anymore. Britney was the only person I stayed in contact with. Even when I felt like we would never talk to each other again and that she would abandon me, everything always turned out all right.

There was a time last year that we weren’t as close as we previously were. I think that’s normal, though; I’ve never heard of a friendship without any down moments. It was easily one of the worst times of my life. I became incredibly depressed and going days without talking to her simply made it worse. During that time, I was struggling a great deal in school and with friends. I beat myself up about it now because, when I felt distraught, there was nothing stopping me from talking to her – yet I didn’t. Today we’re still growing. We have more in common now than before. We like a lot of the same movies, TV shows, people, etc., and that has brought us closer.

Since I met Britney, I’ve become a better person. She taught me how to be more myself than my elementary school guidance counselor ever did. She gives me advice when I ask, and I trust her. Most importantly, my friendship with Britney has taught me that internet friends are real friends. In fact, internet friends are special kinds of friends. You can’t do things like go to a sports game or McDonald’s together like you can with friends off the internet. But internet friends see a side of you that friends in real life often don’t get to see. I’m able to be completely honest with Britney because we don’t go to the same school; if something goes down, I can tell her because she doesn’t know the people I’m talking about. I’m able talk about family issues with her, and that’s a big thing for me because I’m never comfortable enough with anyone I know physically to talk about how dysfunctional my family is. Also, with long distance friendships, you learn to genuinely appreciate the time you have with the people around you because you understand the pain of being apart from someone you care about.