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If you ever feel like you might have too many friends, I have a perfect solution for you.

Play fantasy football.

You’ll be hating your friends in no time, and don’t worry, they’ll be hating you, too.

It’s quite astounding, really.

Fantasy football, for the cave-dwellers out there, is where you essentially pick a pretend team of real NFL players and count their real statistics for your pretend team. Your friends do the same thing, and the teams compete against one another each week.

Your team gets points for good things that happen in real life, such as touchdowns and receptions and rushing yards. Your team loses points for bad things that happen in real life, such as interceptions and fumbles and playing for the Arizona Cardinals.

In a head-to-head league, your team plays against one of your friend’s teams each week, and the team that accumulates the most points is the winner.

When you win, you feel great about yourself and your opponent generally hates you. When you lose, life typically sucks for a couple of hours. Or days.

And that’s that.

As I read over my description of fantasy football, it sounds like it’s one of the most absurd things this world has to offer. And it probably is.

But it’s also incredibly addictive, and it’s generally what I do with my Sundays (and sometimes Mondays – it just depends whether my matchup is decided).

It’s also begun to creep into Saturdays. Last Saturday at the Rose Bowl, I found myself totaling how many points Marcus Everett’s 49-yard touchdown reception would have been worth in fantasy football (One point for the reception, two points for 40 yards and six for the touchdown. That’s a nine-point play!).

Wow.

But I digress.

My purpose here is to talk about how fantasy football compels individuals who would normally be friends to irrationally hate one another – maybe not all the time, but on Sundays for sure.

One guy in my league has 836 total points. If we used total points to determine the standings, he would be eighth of 12. But instead, through the grace of some higher power – or because of favorable matchups, or through some crazy voodoo curse – he sits atop the league at 7-2-1. Consequently, no one really likes him at all right now.

One of my friends has 895 points, but he’s 3-7. Not only does he hate his friends, he hates the world.

And so it goes.

In another league, my roommate is merging his real, genuine rooting interests with his fantasy football team. It’s actually quite a laudable endeavor. Following a series of blockbuster deals, he’s ready to trot out the entire starting lineup of the New England Patriots this week. He’s going to lose, but he’s going to have a great time doing it.

Of course, a number of people in the league aren’t happy with him right now. You could, in theory, say they hate him. But these people simply didn’t have any Patriots to offer as trade bait, and it’s their loss.

In the end, it’s all so silly.

We care so much about something that we have so very little control over.

But then again, that’s how sports are for the sports fan.

I can tell myself that it’s irrational to care about what happens in Tempe this weekend, especially when I’ll be hundreds of miles away reading about accounting.

I can tell myself that what happens at the Coliseum on Saturday shouldn’t change my life one iota.

I can tell myself that what happens in my matchup with Raiders-of-Fantasy on Sunday is ridiculously insignificant.

I can tell myself that I shouldn’t hate my friends.

But I certainly do, it probably will, it does matter, and I can’t help it. Especially when their pretend teams beat mine.

Fantasy sports bonus: If you think you’re getting along a little too well with your girlfriend, just wait until Sunday. She’ll pretty much hate you. E-mail Regan at dregan@media.ucla.edu.