Finding a best friend — someone who compliments you and makes you a better person — can be one of the most difficult things about every student’s teenage years. It takes both time and patience, but in eighth grade, freshmen Ameya Darade and Arnav Das found that friendship. 

Darade had always been a reserved, introverted person: he mostly enjoyed reading and playing the flute. Prior to joining the marching band in the summer before his freshman year, he mostly kept to himself. When anyone approached him and showed interest in being friends, he would talk with them, but he was never the type of person to approach someone new on his own. 

Das couldn’t be more different than Darade if he tried. As an outgoing person, Das felt comfortable approaching new people and initiating friendships and conversations. 

The two met in middle school, where they were locker neighbors. Before their shared advisory class, every day, without fail, Darade would open his locker to get his materials, and every day, without fail, Das would slam his locker shut before he had grabbed everything he needed. “Whenever he was getting late, I would just close his locker so he [would hurry up],” Das said. 

After many days of enduring this, Darade thought Das was incredibly annoying, and he had no intention of becoming good friends with him. That all changed when Das threw Darade’s lunchbox in the trash can. “After [I threw it in the trash can], I was like, ‘Do you want to be friends?’ and then he was like, ‘Yeah sure!’” Das said. “That’s how friendships are made!”

The roles reversed soon after the two became friends. Darade quickly grew more comfortable around Das, bringing out a bolder personality in himself. After a year of being best friends, the two were matched in their snarky jabs and witty comebacks. 

All jokes aside, the friendship became one that both can’t imagine living without. “[Being friends with Arnav] has made high school a lot easier, and it’s made it a lot more fun,” Darade said. “It would’ve been a lot different [without him].”

If either of them are in need of advice, they turn to each other first. “He never judges me, he gives me good advice, and he’s always there for me when I’m down,” Das said. “I can always trust him.” 

Darade and Das’ friendship is a source of inspiration, humor, and happiness to everyone around them. “They’re like two peas in a pod, always lightening the mood together,” freshman Jadelyn Nguyen said. “They joke and have a good time with each other whenever they hang out, and they share aspects of dependability and a good bit of laughter in their friendship, which I admire.”