I first met you all on a one-hour flight, thanks to the perks of technology. Then we got better acquainted in my living room, downing diet cokes and popcorn. I even considered taking you out to the balcony – another perk of technology – but then I saw last season’s finale and figured we’d keep our weekly get-togethers in-house.

Now, you are my weekly therapy. My release. My drama. Renee, Drita, Karen, Carla, Ramona and Big Ang, your bloodlines, handbags, confrontations and Staten Island chic are part of my post-Sunday dinner routine.

Granted, I’m gonna take some flack for falling for you ladies. As Italian-Americans, we find we’re not portrayed or treated in the best light. Even Meadow Soprano said it, to a certain degree. (Hell, I had a former coworker tell me that all Italians were “pasta eaters.”)

And I’ll admit, Mob Wives isn’t necessarily an accurate description of Italian-American women – I’ve known more than enough, including a few who belie the stereotype that the Mob Wives are portraying. A few who have adopted it. A few who have been embarrassed by it. A few who have owned it, without exploiting it. Some of them are my best friends and family members, too.

And it’s probably not even the best representation of “the mob.” (Or, as one of the Mob Wives once asked … “what mob?”)

But in a way, your personalities – and sometimes your behavior, save for that whole plate-throwing incident at Renee’s birthday party – encapsulate some of the things we want to be, or some of the things we want our daughters and sisters and best girlfriends to be.

Tough. Fearless. Feared. Respected. There’s a certain diva machismo to the Mob Wives, one that, historically, has been assigned to their male counterparts.

“I’m just going to carry a wrench with me next time because I don’t even want to get my hands dirty.” – Drita

The Mob Wives, they tell it like it is. They talk behind their backs. Then they say it to each other’s faces. They stand behind their man. Until their man goes behind their back. Then, they stand up to him.

And we want to be friends with these women, because they’ll either have our back or stab us in the back with one of their thigh-high stainless steel stiletto boots. No, actually, they’d come at us from the front.

And in a way, I’m starting to get this whole Real Housewives phenomenon – one that, in all its Buckhead, Short Hills and Upper East Side iterations, I have avoided like a man in a dark suit, carrying a violin case. A man whom I might be related to.

Yet I don’t think Camille Grammer would be able to properly swing a wrench. That’s one of the reasons why I keep coming back to these Mob Wives.