Preternaturally-poised pop music giraffe Taylor Swift is the subject of Rolling Stone‘s current cover story, and aside from some intriguingly odd insights into her personal life – she’s “obsessed” with banana quinoa muffins, and her feelgood rap of choice is Kendrick Lamarr‘s line about having a dick as big as the Eiffel Tower – a good chunk of the piece is devoted to her newly-minted friendship circle.
Friendship is a running theme throughout the profile – specifically, the fact that, if Taylor Swift decides you’re going to be besties, then you will be riding slip’n’slides and eating posh baked goods with her, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you’d best just enjoy basking in her radiant, reflected light:
Since she’s been single, Swift has been acquiring girlfriends with the fervor she once devoted to landing guys … “When your number-one priority is getting a boyfriend, you’re more inclined to see a beautiful girl and think, ‘Oh, she’s gonna get that hot guy I wish I was dating,’” she says. “But when you’re not boyfriend-shopping, you’re able to step back and see other girls who are killing it and think, ‘God, I want to be around her.’”
Back in 2012, Swift set her laser-like sights on Lena Dunham, after watching Girls and deciding that the two of them were destined to be together as besties. When Dunham happened to mention on Twitter that she was also a fan of Swift’s, the singer used Charm and proceded to catch her like a Wild Pachirisu:
“I was really scared she was being ironic, but I decided to follow her anyway, just in case. Within five minutes I had a direct message from her. Let me see if I still have it.” She spends a minute scrolling through her phone. “I still have it! She said, ‘I am so excited about the prospect of being friends with you that I added the adjective best in front of it.’ ‘The idea that you like my show is so thrilling, and I can’t wait to lavish you with praise in person.””
Lena definitely looks up to her new friend.
The Girls-obsessed Swift says that she’s a Shoshanna – “even though I’ve never accidentally smoked crack at a warehouse party and run pantsless through Brooklyn.” Dunham disagrees, and says that she is “Hannah, minus the horrid sexual behaviour. Or Marnie if she wasn’t an asshole.”
In addition to Lena Dunham, Swift has drawn the likes of Lorde and Karlie Kloss into her inner circle. “Two years ago,” the piece says ominously, “she told Vogue she wanted to be friends with Kloss; now they’re going to the gym together and taking road trips to Big Sur.” Once you’re Taylor Swift’s friend, part of the deal is that you need to dress up for her amusement:
Against another wall, there’s a rack full of white nightgowns. “This is a thing me and Lena have,” says Swift. “We wear them during the day and look like pioneer women, fresh off the Oregon Trail.”
Other requirements of the job include kitchen duties on Fourth of July weekend – chopping apples for pie, making salad dressing, trying not to singe her immaculate oven mitts which probably cost $3000 a pair – and letting her win at games, OR ELSE:
“[Afterward], they played Celebrity, the game where everyone puts a bunch of famous names in a hat and takes turns drawing one and trying to make their team guess. The game got a little heated, because one team had a lot more famous people on it, which gave them what some guests thought was an unfair advantage. (Swift: “It was like, ‘You dated him! 2010!’”) But in the end, everyone was appeased, and the game went on as planned. And did Swift’s team win? She smiles. “Of course we won.”
Swift is currently engaged in something called “Project Selena“, which involves making Selena Gomez move to New York so they can hang out more. Something tells us she will get her way.
Photos: Christopher Polk / Jason Merritt via Getty Images
