25 Unspoken “Girl Code” Rules Women Secretly Follow On A Day-To-Day Basis, As Shared Online

"'Girl code' is the rules of being a woman, especially with regards to dating," the BBC website quotes Ellen Scott, Metro's Lifestyle Editor. "It's stuff like: you can't date your friend's ex, you also can't date your ex's friend. If you saw your friend's boyfriend cheating on them - you'd have to tell your friend. It's basically just that your loyalty is always with other women - that's what 'girl code' is supposed to be."

However, many people believe that in fact the 'girl code' goes far beyond relationships, and generally concerns the sphere of women's communication and interaction with each other and, importantly, their attitude toward themselves. At the very least, most of the opinions of women in our selection relate to a way wider area than love and relationships.

In fact, people like to make various sets of unwritten rules and advice. Our entire society is based on such concepts. The thinkers of the Enlightenment a few centuries ago created the theory of the so-called 'social contract' - that almost everything in our world: the state, the economy, private property, and so on, is a product of consent between people. Based on this theory, the 'girl code' is such precisely because women follow similar rules.

Any unwritten set of rules, for any community, is actually debatable, because what, for example, looked completely logical and absolutely correct a few decades ago, today may look strange and silly. Returning to How I Met Your Mother - yes, the series has acquired a cult status, but in our time, many jokes from there, and the very behavior of the characters sometimes look absolutely inappropriate.

And if you find a selection of old women's magazines, let's say, half a century ago, then many of the 'unconditional' rules of conduct of that time (yes, such collections were always and everywhere!) will definitely make us do some facepalming. Who knows, maybe this list will look weird in a few decades as well...

As in any collection of rules and advice, here you will find opinions on what should be done and what not. You will probably disagree with some of the judgments, and some of them look completely obvious. But that's what the Internet exists for, so that sometimes you can argue to your heart's content. So please feel free to scroll this list to the very end, discuss the most interesting and controversive points and add your own ones in case you have something to add.