Dear Mikaela,

You know those super-special, Sex and the City-type friendships that only come along once in a while? The ones where you just KNOW you are going to be BFFs, or at least until you lose the vial of her blood you wear around your neck? Well, I don’t have that.  I mean, I have friends, but they never have time to hang out.  We almost never have sleepovers on the weekends, and I just feel like I don’t have the kind of friends Taylor Swift sings about.  What do I do?

Sincerely,

Carrie Bradshaw would be nothing without her friends!

Dear Carrie,

Wait.  Back up for a second. You mean to tell me that you don’t meet your friends for coffee every day after school, have a strict Friday-night sleepover policy, and spend every moment of your free time together?  Well then we have a serious problem on our hands. The problem being, of course, that you aren’t living in a teen chick-flick. So, unless you are a member of the Plastics (in which case my best advice would be to stop trying to make “fetch” happen– it’s not going to happen!) let’s talk about real-life friendships. While its great to want to be close, you might be asking a little bit too much, especially if you and your friends don’t drive yet. It seems like you’re basing your idea of friendship on an impossible (not to mention fictional) relationship. That being said, I do understand the feeling of missing out on those seemingly perfect HBO friendships, so if you feel like you and your friends are actually drifting apart, you should bring it up and talk to them.  There is no such thing as a “right” kind of friendship (except this), as long as you’re all honest with each other.

Good luck,

Mikaela