Many people refer to their SOs as their “best friends,” and even though they may feel that way, best friendships are still their own, sacred thing. Here, 23 reasons why you’ll always need your BFF, even if you’re in the happiest relationship.
1. Best friends know a completely different version of you. When you grow up with someone, and go through all the awkward, awkward phases that two best friends do, you’re always going to get a little weird from them.
2. Sometimes you need “friend time,” and that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your relationship. Different parts of your personality that need to come out.
3. There is nothing worse than people who enter a relationship and suddenly abandon/disappear from their friends.
4. The best friendship is platonic love, but that doesn’t mean the bond isn’t that strong. You can take care of a BFF like a brother or sister, and tell them you love them, and have a strong relationship that has nothing to do with romance.
5. Sometimes you need to cuddle without expecting to have sex afterwards.
6. All BFFs have a private, weird, bilingual sense of humor that makes no sense to anyone else. You need to keep this up, no matter who you date.
7. If your relationship is strong, your best friend and SO can hang out together and it doesn’t feel weird. Having one of those relationships where the lives of “friend” and “love” must be kept separate is not a good sign.
8. No matter how good a relationship is, sometimes you are the will you need to be open about it, and it’s important to have someone you love and trust completely.
9. You need someone (your best friend) to feed your SO what you can get for every holiday/birthday/important event.
10. Usually, you share a completely different group of friends with your BFF than you do with your SO, and those two groups should be maintained. It can be people you grew up with, and people you met as an adult, and those are equally important to connect with.
11. Best friends are like pieces of history, and you get to be with someone who has experienced so much of your life that you will feel a strong connection to your memories. Losing the person you find when you tell stories about your old self is painful.
12. The best couples are always those with healthy, loving friend groups. The best way to bring them into any group is to go through your best friend first.
13. (Not to mention that they also have to pass the Best Friend Test before they get into a relationship in the first place.)
14. If you have to change any part of who you are – especially the friends you love – to be with someone, that’s the relationship you shouldn’t be in.
15. Love is not about putting “one person above all else emotionally,” it’s about realizing that there are many types of love you can have.
16. We all know someone who is completely different between their SO and their friends, and there is nothing healthy or progressive about that.
17. If your SO is good, they will want to learn from your best friend and be a part of their life, because they are a very big part of who you are (and if they love you, they should want to accept all parts of you).
18. Weddings are always crazy fun when the couple and their friends are really close.
19. If you can manage it, a night with couples and their best friends who are separated from each other on a “friendship date” is one of the most amazing nights you can have.
20. You should definitely have a honeymoon, but there’s no reason not to have a “best friend honeymoon” where you both just take an amazing vacation to celebrate your friendship.
21. Because in the end, you need both, and the idea that one part of your life – your friendship – will be rebuilt more than your romantic relationship is ridiculous. Our hearts are big enough for all kinds of human connections, and there’s no reason not to have them all!
