From the age of...well, really, really young, we're taught to use the buddy system. You go to the bathroom in pairs, or you make sure you buddy-up on field trips or you partner-up to do this and that, really just most of things that we have to do as kids we do on the buddy system. But once a certain age hits, people start trusting us to be independently functioning entities for some reason (really not a good idea).

Here's the thing though, that might not always be the best idea. Yeah, a lot of things don't exactly need the system anymore.

About five years ago I started a system with one of my friends that we called the movie buddy system. We both really liked the same movies and so we started going to all of the premieres for anything that we wanted to see together. It became such a regular thing for us to do that we got a lot closer than we were before and became best friends. Plus, we always had something to talk about.

We started off just going to see any of the Marvel movies that premiered because our relationship had been founded in that sort of nerd-dom three years earlier. From there it expanded into rom coms, action movies, and everything in between. We launched into TV shows too which opened a whole different can of worms.

Everyone I know who even sort of likes movies or TV shows also loves to talk about them. So, if you get someone to watch everything with, you have a person to make all of the inside jokes with. Plus, if everyone stays on track during a TV marathon, you'll always have someone to talk about the latest episodes with.

Sometimes you need to pick up new movie buddies along the way. When I moved away to go to school, it got to be a lot harder and we had to branch out a little bit more to find people to talk to about everything. Of course, we still go see premiers at the same time and then we talk to each other after, but it's a lot more difficult to try to line up random movie times or to stay on track for TV shows. So you just have to pick up more people to help out along the way, which builds a whole network of movie buddies.

There's something that comes from going to premiers with the same person or people every time, or blowing through three seasons of a show without stopping, that you just can't match. You develop these sort of bonds that are unlike anything else. You've got a link that can't be beaten and really, you've got a set of friends who are a step above most others. Nothing like a good diet of pop culture to bring people closer together.

The best of friends are the ones who you can do stupid things with, act like an idiot with, and make all of the stupid references with. Those references and acts come from sharing ridiculous experiences and getting to practice being idiots together.

And, as the old saying goes, "Good friends don't let you do stupid things...Alone."