Kristen Bell: My BFF Soul Mate

It may be true that I have yet to actually meet her, but that doesn’t change the validity of the statement in the least. Regardless of actual interaction, Kristen Bell was destined to be my best friend (she just doesn’t know it yet).

She’s Sassy and Badass.
Granted in large part I’m basing this off of her (fictional) Veronica Mars character, but I’m positive it still holds true. The V-Mars days, her breakout role and when the foundation of our friendship was established. Sure she was just playing a character that was a private investigator, still in high school and struggling to make friends due to trust issues…okay, so maybe not 100% believable, but the girl was completely relatable. While yes, I realize that the writers concocted this character, Kristen made all of us want to be friends with this so-called outsider. I’m confident that watching her fine-tuned my wit, and I know she was my motivation for self defense classes, not to mention the reason behind my continuous longing for a taser (still waiting to be gifted that one). Let’s just all agree she made independent and brave look good, which in a world that loves to paint the female as the damsel in distress, is saying a lot. To sum it up, she’s a badass.

Shorties Stick Together.
Kristen is 5’1″, I’m 5’2″…on a good day. It’s really quite simple, we short girls love other short girls; we just understand each other in ways that the leggy, tall girls can’t. Strength for shorties in numbers (K-Bell, I’ve got your back).

Sloth Love.
Someone please explain to me why I can watch hours of fake violence in movies, but the second a horse goes down in a scene, I wince. Animal lover, right here. Kristen loves sloths, I love sloths, really no need to go on, but I will. Her notorious sloth breakdown video only endeared her more to me. The mere anticipation of a sloth turned her world upside down, and after that there really was no turning back, our absurd animal love had bonded us forever.

She Digs the Funny Dudes.
My kryptonite, the funny guy. Get me laughing and I mean truly laughing and my heart is yours. You might end up crapping on it later, but regardless, for the time being, you’re in. You don’t have to be “Brad Pitt” (insert someone you find undeniably attractive, I’m going to go with Ian Somerhalder), you have to be a “Dax Shepard” in my eyes. Just make me laugh until I cry or pee my pants…yep, sounds perfect.

Parallel Awesome Ridiculousness.
One night I was watching Jimmy Kimmel Live and to my joy and surprise Kristen AND Dax were guests (too much cute and funny? Possibly. But I was elated). Real, sincere, hilarious and adorable — if it wasn’t so inspiring, it would be downright depressing. They begin relaying a recent trip they had taken to Africa where they went on a safari (dream trip of mine) and they are throwing up photos of fear-stricken faces and photo-bombing gorillas and I finding myself falling head-over-heels for this couple. Kristen proceeds to talk about this idea she had to make a video of their trip. As she recounted the story-boarding, planning and timing, I was hearing her describe something I had always longed to do: make the perfect video…in Africa…to Toto’s “Africa”. Brilliant.

So yeah, it’s safe to say that Kristen and I are BFF (even if she never knows who I am).

You can read more from Mandy Daugherty on her blog and follow her on Twitter.