Paris, je t'aime. Lauren, je pense je t'aime ...

I love this girl. I loved the first three-and-a-half seasons of The Hills. I was NEVER on Team Kristin during the Laguna Beach days, though she was admittedly kind of hilarious. LC is my HERO, the girl I want to be when I get younger.

Well, kind of.

One of my Facebook activities is "copying Lauren Conrad's wardrobe" and I've, of late, toyed with the idea of changing it to "copying Blair Waldorf's wardrobe" (we can talk about my ridiculously juvenile Facebook page some other time; whatever, I'm still absent from MySpace and deleting my Facebook when I hit 30 anyway ... I'm clinging to my disillusionment of youth for a while longer) but haven't been able to out of, well, loyalty or apathy, I'm not sure which.

Lauren has been my No. 1 Girl Crush for years. Once in 2004 when I was working in a bar in NYC, some dude told me I looked like her and it (sadly, pathetically, you decide) remains one of the greatest compliments of my life. I think Lauren is adorable, and smart, and the most non-irritating privileged new-money youth I've ever, um, seen on a reality TV show. Plus, she has this fantastic penchant for running around in pretty little cocktail dresses and stilettos and pearls and ponytails and minimal makeup, and, guh. Twins. Everyone loves to love herself, right?

So I've been feeling guilty lately, when the sneaking suspicion that Leighton Meester has taken over the role of No. 1 Girl Crush permeates my brain on Monday nights.

So I've been feeling extra guilty all day after failing to watch the premiere of the second half of season 3 of The Hills last night. Or today online, as was my justification to myself last night when I decided I'd rather go to bed.

So I've been feeling super guilty because I think this all stems from how amazingly underwhelmed I have been by Lauren's fashion line. I think The Fug Girls wrote about it best at some point and voiced the sentiments of us all when they said something along the lines of expecting to see a million pretty little LC cocktail dresses and instead finding a bunch of overpriced tents. And I'll give Lauren credit and say she seems to be getting better with time, but, still. I ... wouldn't buy any of it on clearance. Okay, maybe the Maura Top or the Emily Skirt. On clearance. Because really, she's charging J. Crew-of-late prices and making Old Navy clothes. All under the guise of being a Hollywood designer. Hm.

I mean, this is my No. 1 Girl Crush. I'm not going to break up with her just because I don't actually want to buy her clothes, am I? I mean, I know I've spent 5 years of my life coveting everything she's ever worn, so it was kind of jarring to see what lackluster product her creative side produced. But it could be me! Maybe I've outgrown her? Maybe she's gone too Hollywood, too trendy? Maybe I'm getting lame and traditional in my old age? Maybe I'm the tasteless one and my ridiculous red tights really are just ridiculous and I should invest in ...leggings and cotton beach cover-ups masquerading as dresses by Lauren Conrad?

I should really go watch The Hills.