A best friend is someone who is there for you no matter what and is always available to lend a crying shoulder. However, sometimes your best friend flees the country in a burst of wanderlust to experience the world and leaves you in the dust. If you’ve ever been separated from one of your closest friends for an unbearable amount of time your familiar with the struggle of losing a best friend to “Study Abroad.” A program that is stealing college students from their friends more and more each year. As dark as things may seem when they’re away, there are still some positives to take from this experience! Below is a list of the ten ups and downs you’ll experience when your best friend goes abroad!
1. The Missing Piece
When you’re at the dining hall, or hanging out in your dorm room with your friends and someone sighs and says, “it feels like someone’s missing.” Because, someone is missing and that someone is the world traveler.
2. Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Being apart helps you gain such a great appreciation for your friendship. The emptiness of their presence makes you so grateful for a friendship that’s painful to miss.
3. Living vicariously through their posts and pictures
Lucky for you, you have a front row seat of all the foods your bestie is indulging in while you’re struggling to find an appealing meal in the dining hall. You have the privilege of being able to see their daily Instagrams, Snapchats, and Facebook posts of all the incredible places they’ve been. All you can do is smile, reluctantly toss them a like, and comment something sarcastic like, “it’s prettier in Durham!” All while slowly dying inside…
4. Having an experienced source to go to for your own Study Abroad tips
If you plan on going to the same place your friend did, you have unlimited access to all of the insider information. When the roles are reversed and you’re the one traveling around the world, your bestie will be there for guidance on all the places to go and things to see. They can basically plan out an entire itinerary for your travels!
5. Having to figure out the timing for Facetime sessions
If your BFF is in Europe, the six hour time difference makes for awkward scheduling. The decided time is usually sparatic and totally dependent on their schedule. It’s hard for them to find WiFi while jumping from country to country! If they call you while you’re in the library you better run out of there in time to answer it, it could be the only time you see their face all week! CAUTION: things get real emotional via facetime!
6. Still being able to embarrass each other over Snapchat
Europe can’t protect them from the power of screen-shotting! The Snapchats remain just as hilarious as when they are being taken from a club in Barcelona, or above the Eiffel tower. Screen-shotting is just as disloyal, but still just as funny.
7. Missing them on memorable nights
When you’re out at a party, or even to dinner with all of your friends and just thinking to yourself, “___________ would really love to be here right now.” It’s time like these where the wait for the return is almost insufferable.
8. Keeping them in the loop
Just because they’re gone, doesn’t mean you don’t make it your mission to tell them every last detail of what’s going on in your life, it becomes a part of your routine. *Wake up, class, tell ____________ every last detail of your life, lunch, class, shower, dinner, bed* If anything, they know more than they would if they were here!
9. But….you can easily get away with not telling them any mistakes you’ve made since they’ve been gone
There’s also the plus side of not having to tell them what awkward, embarrassing things happened to you over the weekend, or during the week. Getting to pick and choose what to tell them is an underrated novelty because you know if they were there they would NEVER let you live it down. What THEY don’t know won’t hurt YOU!
10. Reuniting with them
The buildup for the reunion makes the months with out them almost worth it. Creating memories without your MIA friend will suck but it’s the perfect excuse to make up for loss time in the future!