By Olga
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Inevitably, you move to different states, go to different schools, and sometimes lose touch. But when you return, you’re still as weird and dysfunctional as ever before.
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You don’t even need to get to the punchline anymore, they’re already laughing.
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You become friends with their parents too, seeing as they’ve all but adopted you at this point. It’s not uncommon to receive texts from them on the reg.
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You really do start acting like an old married couple. You’re not afraid to bicker, and honestly, you’re probably too attached to each other to stay mad for long.
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Personal space has no bearing on you. Boundaries have completely dissolved into the “it’s 2 a.m. I’m miserable and getting into bed with you deal with it” abyss.
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You get comfortable with silence, arguably the most awesome aspect of any relationship. You can go on trips together or even just hang out without feeling like you need to fill every second with words.
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You understand what their grumbling or indecipherable whining means, down to the words they are thinking, verbatim.
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We all know that the Snapchats get uglier as the friendship deepens, but people who have been friends for years take it to a new, grossly indescribable level. *Twitches eye, pushes face back into triple chin, takes photo.*
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You’ve stopped keeping tabs on who owes who what in terms of drinks bought and money spent. At the end of the day your only thought is “eh, it’ll probably even itself out eventually.”
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You stop asking to try food off the other one’s plate, as long as it’s not the 3-5 foods that they are obsessed with to which you wouldn’t dare risk having your hand stabbed with a fork.
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You’re the one their significant other really has to win over.
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They know all about every person in your life, like the roommates from school and people you dated when you were in such and such a state, even if they don’t actually know them. So well, in fact, that they’ve probably Facebook friended them all.
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They have literally been your therapist for too many years to count, and though the need for that does not wane, their ability to tell you to shut the hell up and move on only increases with time.
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Time only further enables their radar for your “people I’d rather throw myself off a building than see again” and their swiftness in leading you away from that mess while out together, somehow, does not fade with time.
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Theirs is a knowledge that few other humans have. Their eyes have witnessed your fashion tragedies and middle school romances gone askew and yet they hung around.
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Speaking of, they know where that person you dated in 8th grade ended up and they love you anyway. They love you anyway.
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You’re nearing that part of life when you’re starting to do the things you always sat in your room and talked about doing, like getting jobs and finishing school and getting married, and though it’s crazy bittersweet, it’s crazier that they’re still here to witness it just as you spoke about it before.