By Christina Bivona, inside columnist

Girl flirting – it’s a thing, and we’re all guilty of doing it. This isn’t just any type of flirting, but rather the quest to gain the perfect best friend, your ultimate “girl crush.”

Whether we realize it or not, we all have some sort of girl crush – that girl you see on a regular basis that you mildly have an unspoken obsession with. It’s okay, you don’t have to admit it if you don’t want to, but I’m sure you have at least one person that comes to mind.

Maybe she’s that girl in your 9:15 a.m. class that always has something funny to say, or the one you see at the gym each night that is definitely on the same schedule as you or maybe the girl you pass each morning that just somehow always has a good hair day. (Please, teach me your ways.) Whoever she is, you secretly want her to be your friend, and you want it to happen now.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You can’t just walk up to her and say, “Hi, I know we haven’t met, but I’ve seen you around and I think we’d be best friends.” What are you, crazy? A little, but she doesn’t need to know that yet. You have to be stealthy. You want this friendship to look like it bloomed naturally, when in fact, you’ve been scheming this introduction for the past few days, months, maybe even years. Look, it happens, no judgments here.

So what do you do? Nothing – besides occasionally stalk her Facebook because – hey, you have 45 mutual friends and oh my god, you were at that party last weekend too.

Your girl crush makes you work harder, and she doesn’t even know it. Her clothes, the way she does her make up, she oozes low-key coolness, and you envy it. She makes getting ready in the morning seem effortless, and she probably doesn’t even know the meaning of the word “sweat.”

So you put a little more energy into looking nice each day, maybe try a new eyeliner or part your hair a different way, wear that jacket that your mom keeps telling you looks good on you, because let’s be honest – we dress to impress other girls rather than guys. The boy in your math class isn’t going to know that’s a Michael Kors bag around your arm, but that girl two seats down, she knows what’s up.

So your obsession goes on and you get a little carried away with your imagination, but who can blame you? You can already see yourselves doing everything together – shopping at the same stores, crying together in spin class, binge-watching Netflix. You’re both obsessed with taking pictures of your food, you’re pretty much soulmates. You’ve already got a bottle of wine in the fridge with your names on it.

She’s your nugget, your partner in crime, the lime to your tequila, your best friend forever – or will be once you actually become friends, you just know it. And when that day comes, and it will, when you’re blessed with the perfect way to introduce yourself, the only real question will be: why didn’t you become best friends sooner?

-Christina Bivona can be reached at [email protected].

Photo courtesy Eddy Van 3000, Creative Commons