I like your hat. Will you be my friend?

Some people say it's childish and most often than not, "some people" tend to be right. But the fact remains that I'm a grown man who has best friends. BFFs if you will.

Hear me out. Everyone has friends. More often than not we surround ourselves with them. It seems that the goal as humans is to accumulate as many friends as possible and I'm not talking about the myspace/friendster/facebook variety, but real living, breathing, drinking type friends. It's just the quality/quantity of said friends that determines how things turn out.

There are the friends you can count on, the ones you'd go to "war" with. The friends you call when you break up with your girlfriend, the ones who can cause you to literally LOL on instant messenger. Maybe they aren't near right now, but there's no need to catch up with them because eating wings/Frosty’s/brownie sundaes is better than reminiscing about those wings/Frosty’s/brownie sundaes you ate.

On the other end of the spectrum there's the friends you work with, the ones you talk sports/movies with and the ones you even eat lunch with. You may know their story, but at best you're a supporting character and more often than not, you won't make it back for the sequel. These friends tend to come and go and that is why they aren't my best friends.

Anyways, I've never been a numbers guy so I'd never choose a numerical ranking system (save for the occasional Female Power Rankings). To fully comprehend how things stack up, you should have a basic understanding of baseball. Frankly if you don't have somewhat of an inkling about baseball, you had best be a cute girl or have a highly evolved database of A Team episodes to draw upon.

Quite simply it's all about tiers: A, AA, AAA. You take baby steps, you learn how to swim and sooner or later you might make it to the SHOW. For a more in-depth look at where you stand, please feel free to ask. The fact that you’re reading this is a good start.

While my idiosyncrasies definitely tend to stray towards the odd and somewhat bewildering, I think most people know what I'm talking about. Only they don't openly admit to having BFF.

Sure, it's partly my ego, but I really think that my best friends are awesome. They’re just like normal friends, but frankly better in every way. Funnier, smarter and just better. Kind of like me really.

The point of the story is that if loving someone means never having to say you’re sorry, then being best friends with someone means never having to tell them that. But when they do, it's pretty meaningful. And it’s good to know. (A gay joke would be good here, but then again so would eating a cheeseburger.)