When Your Best Friend Lives In Another Country

Few things in life are as unfortunate as having a BFF live 5,500 miles away (OK there are lots of things as/more unfortunate, but I'm prone to hyperbole). When your best friend lives in another country it's comparable to watching half of you fly away every year, not to come back until the next (maybe), and even then for only a couple weeks: you're debilitated, not quite whole, and nothing is the same.

The thing about friends is that they are a very broad genre: you have your mediocre going-out/partying friends, your semi-bossy friends who do all the talking but are always down for a cupcake so whatevs, and then you have those people that actually help to define what happiness means to you. That is my Johan (as well as a few others — Lauren, Paige and Andrew, I'm looking at you) and I bet you have a Johan too.

These people are easily identifiable: they've truly seen you at your worst, your best and everywhere in between, yet they love you no less. They understand what it means when you're quiet or you're loud or when you've made a mistake; the subtle nuances that so few take the time to identify. These are the rare few who you don't see for a year and pick right back up with at the reunion because, of course you do. But because these people are so amazing, they have goals and careers and accomplishments they're chasing; we're not all so lucky to have them around all the time.

Here are 10 things that happen when your best friend lives a world away.

1. You eat literally all the foods when you're together because every single damn day is a calorie-ignorant celebration.

Calories don't count.

2. You drink festive, exotic alcohol with names you can't type in your language, and also all the other booze, when they're visiting.

What is this three drink limit that you speak of?

3. There is no such thing as a holiday budget, because Christmas comes but once a year in the form of their smiling faces.

Rent? What rent?

4. Skype is low-quality and a pain in the ass, so you plan about a million sessions just hoping for one to stick.

P.S. Sorry I'm a Skype flake.

5. You occasionally get way too lonely, better understanding those who literally can't even.

Your life just isn't the same without them.

6. You reminisce a lot and really, truly miss the old times.

One day you'll be together again. One day.

7. You identify less with your nation and more with the world because the people you love are scattered around it.

"I am a child of the world," she said...

8. You consider dropping everything and moving into their living room.

You'll learn the language eventually.

9. You stalk their social media accounts like a filter-starved rabid Insta-wolf. Yes, just like that.

All of their food pics look so much better than anyone else's. *cries in Cheerios*

10. You grow so much more thankful for their presence in your life.

So much love.

Images: Giphy (10)