Unwritten rules of good friendship

*blah-blah alert*
In no mood to write the stuff I am ACTUALLY supposed to be writing  - my office report, the long due reply to the emails of random relatives, the kids' homework .. what? DO NOT believe any parent who claims they don't do even a wee bit of their kids' homework -they are pathological LIARS!

Thus you find here random craziness put together with on a deplorably cold evening (its a !!!@#!-ing 3 degrees in Delhi!) - so please feel free to not read this post! *sulk face*

I discovered that friends have an important function in the evolution of mankind - it taught us the valuable lesson in being a social animal in the first place - and of course women and men have completely different codes of friendship. The male version is quite elaborately dissected and discussed in all the 'bro-codes' of 'How I met your Mother'. What about the sis-codes? Well, ladies and gents, here it is -

• Rule 1 : Dress-to-kill-at-weddings (literally) : Notice how your best friends (and your sister) dress over the top at your weddings? Bet you didn't know that we HAVE to overdo the makeup and the expensive hairdo - just so that the bride doesn't look as if she steeped out of a Rajshree set ALONE - we accompanied her! I mean, really - have you heard of the GROOM's friends getting a manicure because of his best friends' wedding? Well, WE have manicures, back bleaches and the works when OUR friend gets married - now THATs friendship!
• Rule 2 : Talk - Period : Have you spent the whole day talking, and then lie down in bed and continue to talk till dawn. We do it - with aplomb! Especially if we have met after a few years. Talk about old times, about every other person we both know, about how we would do what to them if we got the chance, and when we plan to do what! Yes, the WHOLE night - we can do that! And when we drink, we still manage to talk better - beat that!
• Rule 3 : Compare : Let me elaborate. I may have a psychopathic stalker threatening to kill me. But if (rather, WHEN) I talk to my friend, she will have elaborate details of how she, or someone she knows, had an even worse situation. In short, she will tell you how everyone else has the same problem too - for all you know, I might be better off, you know........ There you go! That's an instant pick-me-up, don't you think?
• Rule 4 : Bargain : Now, I may not NEED that Persian rug. I may have just mentioned in a passing to my shopping friend how it would look nice in the living room. Bingo! You have just activated the chemical locha in her head, and she turns into this mean, number calculating, bargaining machine. She'll huff and she'll puff till the poor sales guy will hold a cross to ward her off, and you get such a bargain, that you end up buying stuff that will create a crater in your purse! But a bargain is a bargain, right?
• Rule 5 : We love each others' kids. Seriously, you can see us gush over how cute the little one looks, or how nice the big one behaves. We may not always agree on the schools they choose, or the clothes they wear, but we will ALWAYS praise the kids. If not, we just may end up clobbering each other.
• Rule 6 : We will hug each other when we meet - even if we meet every two days!! The noise level and the length of the hug (include some jumping and whooping too, sometimes) will be directly proportional to the length of time we have not met each other. Oh - and SOMETIMES (that is a big word) its perfectly fine with us to hug a person we are meeting for the first time too!

I am sure there are many more pointers we can add to the sis-code ... what say?