A friend in need is a friend that ONLY EXISTS IN YOUR IMAGINATION.

"Are we just all mean girls at heart?"

Amanda Seyfried is unsure.

The Times is curious. (I would give you a link, but paywall damn you Rupert Murdoch blah blah.) The front page of today's T2 further inquires, "Can women ever truly be bosom buddies?"

DUH, no! Luckily we have Xander Harris, who is famously the friend of your bosoms!

BOTH BOSOMS AT THE SAME TIME!

WHAT, of course I have a point! I don't just want to post pictures of my favourite films and TV shows centred on the US high school experience! I am totally able to not post a picture of any character from Dawson's Creek right now! I should really stop telling people about my Dawson's Creek obsession.

Anyway, the article's referring to the delightful Twisted Sisterhood, the basic thesis of which is - as far as I can gather, because, dude, have you seen the size of my books-I-haven't-read-yet-pile? Combined with my books-I-really-want-to-buy list, they form a mighty bulwark against reading drivel that will make me angry without making me cleverer - is "girls are SO MEAN!" 

The article itself is actually pretty awesome (peculiar timing aside - wasn't the book published last October?): without resorting to full-on whatthefuckery, Helen Rumbelow manages to deftly point out the flaws in Valen's arguments, gently poking fun at the idea of writing a whole book on how nasty the ladies can be. Isn't the proposal "just another way of slicing and dicing the bad side of human nature, as illuminating as writing about why the British, or allotment holders, or Apprentice contestants, are mean to each other?" ("GET OFF MY CABBAGES, MOTHERFUCKER!" - imaginary allotment-holder.) 

She also points out the impossibility of critiquing Valen's ideas: "Either you're with her in her view that women are not with each other, or you're against her by telling her you're with her, if you see what I mean." Because god forbid two women could just disagree with each other. Nope, it's bitchy, it's twisted, and it's always fucking personal.

But what perplexes me is this: who am I allowed to be friends with? More importantly, who am I capable of being friends with?

Clearly women are out: they would merely use my friendship as a way to stab me in the bitchy back.

But, as the flourishing CAN MEN AND WOMEN EVER BE FRIENDS??? industry never ceases to remind us, the dudes won't be much good either, what with their unquenchable urge to get in my pants.

So now I'm off to explain to all my "friends" (oh, how we fool ourselves!) that our "friendships" will have to end, due to their scientific impossibility, detailing either the bitchy factor or the unquenchable pants lust factor as appropriate. Evidently I am much lonelier than I realised. Which makes me feel like this:

Sad face.