Girl code isn’t limited. If someone actually tried to sit down and write out all of the innate rules that girls are expected to follow, I wouldn’t be shocked if it was longer than all seven Harry Potter books combined.

That being said, no one has ever tried because everyone is expected to know. I think most people have a good enough sense of right and wrong to know when they’re breaking girl code. I mean, come on.

But then there’s another population of girls who either decide not to follow girl code or just don’t get it. These girls need to learn.

The other night I was with a couple of my friends, and one of them introduced the rest of us to a guy she knew from back home. He was obviously cute, and her smile was beaming while she talked to him. It was clear early on that she liked him. When I had a chance to bring it up without him there, I asked, “He’s cute, are you into him?”

“Into him?” she replied. “I’m just about obsessed.”

I smiled and assumed the position of wing-woman and expected the others to do the same. However, they seemed to have no interest in helping our friend pursue the guy and proceeded to make moves for themselves. Minutes later, I look over, only to see one of them grinding with him on the dance floor.

I was so confused, but I tried to distract the friend who liked him. A couple more minutes passed and she stopped dancing with him. But then I look over again, and he’s dancing with our other friend!

At this point, I decided that he was obviously just a guy trying to get as many girls as he could because I saw him dance with multiple other girls through the rest of the night. When he reached for me, I politely declined — something we all should have done.

I’m not saying I’m an angel for this. People have broken girl code on accident or when they don’t even know they’re doing it. But this was a clear situation. Our friend knew him previously and was extremely interested and expressed that interest to us. At that point, he was off-limits.

At least this case was very minor and nothing bad came of it. However, there are other cases where people get hurt and friendships get broken.

I once heard a story about a girl who had the biggest crush on a guy for a long time. She talked about him constantly and fantasized about their future. Her best friend was well aware of it, probably more than anyone else was.

All this time, her best friend was secretly hanging out with him. She sat through endless conversations about how much her best friend loved him and never told her about what she had been doing.

Once the feelings were real and the two came out as a couple, you can imagine how crushed the girl was. These two girls, who were best friends, lost their friendship over a guy.

It would honestly shock me if these girls didn’t feel at least a little bit wrong for doing what they did. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind for this is if it feels wrong, odds are it probably is. It’s better to resist the attraction to a guy if it means risking a friendship that could last a lot longer.