Girls have more friends than boys. You know what I'm talkin' about? Maybe this is a stereotype, but it seems like every female I know considers every person they've ever met to be their "friend." Know a woman long enough, and you'll hear about "my friend Matt," "my friend Josh," and "my friend Christina/Kristina." You'll learn about the four Kevins, the eight Steves, and amazingly, at least one Ian. (You'll also note they've got these crazy things called "friends of the opposite sex," which most of us dudes have only dabbled in.) When the friend-count gets high enough, I always start to wonder what their criteria is. You can only have so many people you really know. (See Dunbar's Number--ha! Dunbar!)

How do you determine who's a "friend" as opposed to people who are just, as my friend Pat once said, "in the filing cabinet of dudes I've met"? For me, you have to be someone I've actually spent a lot of time with on purpose ("at work" doesn't count!) for me to call you "my friend." No offense to some guy I give a nod to in an elevator and never see again--I'm sure he's a great guy. But a "friend"?

To me, a person who introduced himself to me at a party in 1998 and maybe exchanged email addresses with me just to be nice is just that: "a person I met once." To a woman, he's "my friend Rob." Welcome to the club, Rob. The "friends of hers named Rob" club, because you're definitely not the only Rob.

Recently, my girlfriend mentioned one of her "friends," and I broached the hell out of this subject. I finally got it out of her that this "friend" was someone she knew a little bit and hadn't seen in a decade--and I think she even said they had a fight and they hadn't seen each other since! "Friend" status, for that? I don't know.... Also, "friend" implies "current friend." Once you "break up," you at least have to call that person an "ex-friend."

While we were talking about this, I used this example: "Is Jessica Bennett my friend? We used to carpool--to nursery school. After that, her family must've moved, because I haven't seen her since. Sure, we were carpoolin' buddies. We had some good times together, playing in the sandbox and making pictures out of glitter and glue. We even had some bad times--me getting her a Magilla Gorilla-related gift for her birthday that went, uh, underappreciated. But if I'm listing friends, Jessica Bennett is not making the cut."

This story gets Jere-fied when, the next night, my girlfriend and I go to see Evan Almighty. Standing in line in front of us at the theater is, no, not Jessica Bennett, but, incredibly, the third person in my nursery school carpool, Leigha Cuniberti,* who went to school with me through high school. A friend of mine? Let's see, we had the carpool thing in '79; I swam in her pool a few times while her family was on vacation because my sister was feeding their cats; haven't seen her in 14 years....nice girl, but I'm gonna say no. But had I had the nerve to say anything to her and introduce her to my girlfriend, you can bet she'd be my girlfriend's friend right now.


*Since I didn't verify that it was Leigha, well, it might not have been her. If it was, though, I think this was an amazing coincidence, especially since, during the Bennett coversation, we'd talked about what it would be like if I suddenly ran into her, and if I'd introduce her as my "friend." I just Googled Leigha's name, though, and I'm happy to report that as of 2004, she's listed, at least on this page about a 5-mile run, as living in Boston. Her family was always into running, and her dad's a Sox fan, and with that unique name, it's gotta be her. (206th out of over 900 in that race. Nice work, my fr-- uh, my person I carpooled with and whose pool I swam in and who graduated with me but who I haven't seen since except for maybe at that movie theater. Hmmm, maybe "friend" is easier....)