Not so long ago, I went with two of my male colleagues to watch a movie called I Love You, Man.

The movie, starring the underrated Paul Rudd, is a comedy 'bromance' about a guy who gets engaged but then realises he has no close male friends to be his best man.

After a string of man-date mishaps, he meets a guy whom he bonds with, among other things, pretending to be part of a rock band and 'slappin' da bass'.

Of course, as with all good romantic comedies - even the ones without girls - the two friends have a fight.

By the time they make up, just before the on-screen wedding, I was already crying.

That actually doesn't say much about the movie, because I cry at all movies. I cried in the first Transformers movie, in Star Wars, and even in The Ring, although that might have been because I was watching it at home and my friend jumped out of the closet to scare me.

The only movie I remember that didn't make me cry had a Terminator in it, and that was because I fell asleep during the show.

Anyway, my point was that I Love You, Man was - to me at least - a touching, thought-provoking movie that made me pensively re-evaluate all my friendships with my female friends.

My two colleagues, on the other hand, laughed uproariously and with dry eyes throughout the show.

For weeks after that, every time they saw each other, they would jump into action playing air guitar and yelling: 'Slappin' da bass!'

Now these two colleagues are not, as they may sound, 12 years old. They are in fact eight years apart in age, hail from quite different backgrounds and don't have that much in common.

But all this hasn't stopped them from becoming fast friends, hanging out on weekends and, as illustrated earlier, howling with laughter over the stupidest jokes as their other (female) colleagues look on in bemusement.

They even took a trip together to Manchester in England - barely six months after they first met - to watch their favourite football team in action.

All this just goes to prove my long-held theory about friendships: Contrary to popular belief, guys find it easier to make friends than girls.

They simply take the lowest common denominator, no matter how flimsy it may seem, and power ahead from there.

When it comes to male bonding, there are two simple words: soccer and girls. (For gay guys: Prada and Gucci.)

When a guy meets another guy for the first time, they shake hands and then stand around awkwardly.

Weather talk ensues, perhaps followed by a lame joke. Then, out of desperation, one of them will mention last night's 'game' or comment on a passing pretty girl and - bam! - instant friends.

For girls it's a bit different. The first meeting is invariably friendly, sometimes effusively so, filled with compliments on each other's clothing and accessories and - depending on how little there is to talk about - make-up.

There are plenty of polite questions, mutually affirming responses and a veritable flood of smiles and nods.

Then, once the girls part ways, more often than not they will turn to their companions and make some cutting comment about the girl they just met.

'Wah, did you see her hair?' I've heard one say. 'Looks like dead snakes growing out of her head. But, of course, I had to say it was nice, haha.'

Of course I'm not saying that all girls are like this. But I've heard - and, I'm ashamed to say, participated in - enough of such conversations to know they exist.

So recently, with the help of my fun-loving, joke-telling, bass-slappin' male colleagues, I've adopted a new attitude towards making new friends.

I'm going to pretend to be a guy.

From what I understand, that means learning to constantly repeat toilet jokes, being able to belch at will and never ever crying at a movie, not even when Bambi's mother dies.

More importantly - and this applies for both guys and girls - it means being less superficial and judgmental about new acquaintances and being ready to embrace the slightest common interest as a foundation for friendship.

Yes, it sounds like a lot of work. But on the bright side, if all goes well, I'll never have to worry about what my hair looks like again.