Listen guys, I can’t help it. I tried to hate her. I did. I didn’t know a single Taylor Swift song until, like, 2012, and even then the only ones I knew were like three years old.  I didn’t like her squinty half-open eyes or her pseudo crimped hair or the fact that she always wears sparkly dresses except for when she’s walking down the street in all black.

And then, I found myself watching her on 60 Minutes last year.  To this day, I still don’t totally know what happened.  But I fell in love.

And now, I want to be best friends with Taylor Swift.

Suddenly, I giggle every time a Swift song comes on. Especially if it’s that sassy little one, “Mean.” Maybe it’s because I’ve heard good things about her around Nashville, or that I know she goes to some of the same coffee shops I visit when she’s in town. Or maybe it’s because I know she’s twenty three, and I think I could provide some laughs and life advice because I’m just a couple years older but still young enough that we would totally “get” get each other.

I think we could talk about boys.  I think she could tell me about her dating woes and we could write songs about it.  She probably doesn’t know anything about my once-famed female trio called So Much Man, but if she did, she would love the demos we’ve put down.  I think we could get non-fat vanilla lattes together and talk about the weirdest things that have happened to us in the past week.  Her weirdness woes would probably include middle-aged stalkers trying to poke their penises through the windows of her tour bus and mine would probably include my mom joining Facebook, but we would totally love each other’s stories.

Now, lots of people make fun of T. Swift—and she’s easy to poke fun at.  She makes surprised faces all the time that cause people to question the sincerity of her humility (I don’t); she dates a different boy every week (and then writes a song about it), and she’s a little bit of a nerd and got famous (supposedly) because her dad purchased her first, like, 500,000 albums.  Okay, whatever. We all have our flaws.

I’m fake-humble sometimes too. I used to date a bazillion boys a week and write songs about them too. I like my own Facebook statuses 80% of the time.

Last year, I found out that Tay Swifto was backstage at the same Dashboard Confessional concert I was backstage at in Nashville, Tenn. Obviously, we should have both been embarrassed to be backstage at a Dashboard concert that wasn’t taking place in the year 2002, but we weren’t! We were both there! Living the dream! Screaming our fidelities!

Unfortunately, Tay Tay  and I didn’t become besties that night, and it’s a damn shame. But, Taylor, I know you’re out there. And when the frustration of famous friends starts to eat away at your soul, I’m happy to help you slum it with the plebeians here in Nashville.  Coffee’s on me!