November 11th, 2013
Dear Mindy Kaling, Will You Be My Best Friend?

Let’s face it – a true best friend is hard to find, especially if you’re hoping to hit the jackpot and land a movie star BFF. While several of us at The Gabbler did audition for Paris Hilton’s “My New BFF” a few years back, it’s getting harder and harder to find a celebrity that we can actually relate to. We don’t do enough drugs to chill with LiLo. We eat too many carbs to hang with Gwyneth. Our twerking ability is sub-par and we can’t really move our tongue like that, so Miley is out. But Mindy Kaling? Now that’s a girl with a healthy body image and no sex tapes to speak of! So The Gabbler’s Lisa DeBenedictis wrote Ms. Kaling the following letter in the hopes of best friendship. It’s up to Mindy to make the next move…

Dear Mindy Kaling,

I’ve been feeling this way for a while, but I tried desperately to brush it off. I’m obsessed with your show, “The Mindy Project.” I follow you on Twitter. I read your book three times, and when I finished, I couldn’t stop hugging it. I thought about writing to you then, but I felt like you’d probably think I was one of those weird stalker-types. And though I know you’d secretly be flattered to have a stalker, you’d also be kind of freaked out. And then, we’d never be best friends!

But let me cut to the chase. Here are ten reasons why I think that if the stars aligned and we finally met in person we would ultimately become best friends, Mindy:

1. I will never judge you for eating ice cream out of the carton. And not one of those teeny individual-sized cartons that skinny bitches buy when they want to “splurge.” Rather, I will buy my own tub of ice cream, too, and I won’t care if you stick your used spoon into my tub to try my Oreo Fudge Chunk when you’re sick of Moose Tracks. And we’ll both mix Nutella into our ice cream, too. (Have you never tried that? Mindy, you are missing out!)

2. I won’t say anything like “Ugh, I really NEED to go to the gym,” or “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just ate that!” after eating the ice cream mentioned in reason 1. I’ll just sit there with a smile on my face and let the onslaught of fatty sugars course through my bloodstream like heroin. And then we’ll watch Million Dollar Matchmaker.

3. I am a firm believer that one is never too old for friendship bracelets.

4. When I log into Pinterest, I feel like I’m bad at being a woman because I never have any time to make cupcakes that look like wedding dresses or shoe holders out of wire hangers. I haven’t seen your house, but somehow I doubt you’re into DIY shoe holders.

5. I’m also an avid believer in The Irish Goodbye, as referenced in the final chapters of your book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which, by the way, I’m fairly certain my great-grandfather invented back in Ireland. (Granted, he just left the pub in a drunken stupor and forgot to pay his tab, but the phrase has evolved.)

6. I agree with you that Channing Tatum would make an excellent centaur. I also think Lana Del Ray would be the most beautiful mermaid ever, and that Danny DeVito looks exactly like a satyr.

7.  I will get wasted with you if you go through a break up, and we will end up belting out Alanis Morrissette’s “You Oughta Know” at a dumpy karaoke bar to an unenthusiastic crowd. Or just in my car. Either way, it will make us feel better.

8. When I go to art museums, I totally enjoy the beautiful art and all that, but really, I play a game in my head that in every room of the museum, I have to pick one piece of art to have in my house. In this way, it’s more like window shopping, and it allows me to stare at the artwork much more thoughtfully as I consider how they would look hanging on my freshly painted “Mediterranean Blue” hallway. Doesn’t that sound way more fun to you?

9. Last week, I bought a pair of pants that I absolutely love because they make me look taller and skinnier at the same time, and I wore them three days in a row. So no, I won’t judge you for wearing that sweater two days in a row – no one saw you, and it looks fantastic.

10. I always intend to buy the New Yorker at the airport, but I then become riveted by Cosmopolitan’s latest headline: “Have You Tried the Sexiest Hair Oil in History?” So I end up with Vanity Fair as a compromise to myself, but then I skip all the serious articles about politics, and go straight for the Fan Fair section. (Don’t worry, I’ll buy the Cosmo for you, too.)