This is not a cliché

Friends. Everyone has them, everyone loves them. But does everyone ever take the time to step back and truly appreciate them? I know I do.
   The reason that I am saying this is that in September 2009 I met a girl. By October we were in a relationship and I lost contact with my friends, concentrating more on my relationship. Since then these friends have moved on to various universities around the country and I soon had no friends left at home, but I felt alright because  I still had my girlfriend. During the relationship I met a lot of new people, mostly through my girlfriend and we spoke occasionally, but they all seemed to be 'just my girlfriend's friends'.
   The first time that I realised how good that these friends actually were was when my girlfriend moved away to Liverpool for university and we went through a rough time. During this there was a short separation, and it was these friends that were there for me, helped me pull through, and helped to keep my head together. They helped to keep me occupied close to home, and for this I was very grateful.
  Only a couple of weeks later and the relationship was back on track, and I became too occupied with travelling to and from Liverpool and working to keep in touch, which I kinda regretted.
   Further down the line I found myself amidst a break up, I stayed strong on the outside, but inside it was hard. This was about two months ago, and I genuinely thought that that was it, I had no friends left at all.  After a couple of weeks I decided to pick myself up and I headed up town for the night to see if I could run into any old friends, and that's just what I did. It was the same friends that were there for me before, the people that I would never have met if it wasn't for my girlfriend, and the people that are there for me even after losing contact.
   These people probably won't see this, and if they did they would probably just pick on me for it. They probably think that they're just average friends, but they are not. They mean a hell of a lot to me and I cannot thank them enough, I would probably be clinically insane without them. I seriously could not ask for better friends, I love them all.