WARNING! This entry may contain coarse rudity

There's a fine line between having the resilience to find your true love and being just plain rude.

After a whirlwind relationship, Sally Strawberry and Peter Peaches decided to call it quits. Quits to the life, the kids, the house… pretty much everything they planned to share while living out their perfectly concocted image of coupledom in foreverdom.

Later, Sally Strawberry moved on and started seeing a new guy – Gareth Grape. Everything was going well until Peter Peaches decided he wanted Sally Strawberry back.

So, Peter Peaches would call Sally Strawberry every now and then. He would bring up how good things used to be, how happy they made each other, asked why things couldn't go back to the way they used to be and where they'd be had things been done differently - 'hypothetically speaking', of course.

And how could we forget? The all so casual inquiry about the new person on the scene. How's… that guy, by the way? Or: Hope everything works out with that chick… whatever her name is. When they very well know what his/her name is. Probably even his/her nationality, school, age and reputation by asking around.

Some of us may relate to Sally Strawberry, caught between the intentions of an unrelenting old lover, and the innocence of a possible new, if not greater love.

Maybe you're a Gareth Grape, to have your chances rudely disrupted by someone's emergency case of: "I just realised he/she's The One so if you could get lost that would be great".

Others may identify with Peter Peaches, who will do anything, I mean anything for love.

But at what point does Peter Peaches stop being a ruthless romantic who would do anything to win back a soulmate, to a down right rude jerk who won't give the likes of Gareth grape a fair go?

I believe that the battlefield of love is a lot like a parking lot. And since most of us reading this are on our L's, even on our P's – the concept shouldn't be too difficult to understand. I don't care if you've parked here for a minute before me. I don't care if you've parked here for a year. I don't care if your ancestors have parked here for three consecutive generations. You took off and lost your spot. Why should relationships be any different?

So what's suddenly given rise to these hooligans thinking they can walk in and out of a relationship as they please?

Maybe it's the sight of seeing them happy with someone else. Maybe it's the realisation that what used to be is actually meant to be. In any case, it all comes down to one thing. RUDITY.

Rude because you've shitted all over the clean slate your ex partner has started with someone new.

It parades a lack of respect towards the new comer – who struggles to form a stable relationship because you refuse to let another one close; with your suggestive comments, desperate pleas and shifty reminiscences.

It stamps the word selfish on your forehead. You wouldn't want it happening to you, so why do it to someone else?

In the name of true love: move mountains, walk a thousand miles and cross the oceans all you like… but by all means DO NOT interfere with an ex until the coast is clear.

BE FAIR, OR BE SQUARE!

I love Cameron Diaz, so I don't have a crush on Justin Timberlake. It's rude. I wouldn't like it if people had crushes on my boyfriend - Paris Hilton in Cosmopolitan (Feb 2007 issue)

My big fat greek Philia

Philia, means friendship in modern Greek, a dispassionate virtuous love, was a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity.

They (including my art teacher) say that a boy and a girl can never be just friends. That since the pair get along so well, are bound for something more – a romantic connection down the road. I believe it's all a bunch of poppy-cock. Whoever said that was making friends with wrong members of the opposite sex.

I don't believe in Santa Claus, Fairies, Ghosts or Soulmates; but I do believe in the possibility of a heterosexual best friend relationship.

Men may come from Mars, and women may come from Venus – but here on Earth they can be seen walking down the street side by side – now how smashing's that eh?

A disadvantage is that you STILL cannot check out other guys. All you'll get is the usual "I don't know, I'm not gay!". Yet if there's a fat slob with snot running down his face, toddling with a more than visible ass crack will say: "Now there's one hell of an ugly mo'fucka!", without even being asked.

Now to the overweighing advantages. Drumroll please. You can ask all those simple and not no so simple questions about the male anatomy and receive a clear cut answer in return. For example:

> Is it true that the bass from a stereo can make your balls tingle?

> Do boys really get turned on by having his balls sucked

So on and so forth. Topics of which would cause a group of teenage girls into hysterics – you'd think they were betting on shares at Wall Street.

You also gain a boy eye perspective on things. They'll admit whether a girl is attractive, stuck-up or… beautiful. Like, how often do guys use that word – beautiful unless they're describing their mother's home made spaghetti? I speak on behalf on most girls out there that we regurgitate the word like no tomorrow. We meet some girl once and think she's beautiful. Another girl is beautiful because she thought we had a nice pair of killer heels. Don't even get me started on the word hot. Girls will call each other hot all the time to each others face and wn't even mean it half the time. It's like "Woops, I accidentally called her hot, I'll go bitch to my friends about her weird hair, her flat chest or her fat legs".

But the most important thing I've learnt from having a male best friend is this kind of love and concern that supersedes the romantic, sexual kind – it's somewhat purer and reassuring. The phrase 'I love you' is handled more responsibly then that in a girlfriend boyfriend relationship. In the times that they're said, are made without doubt, malice or regret. In the same way a couple will claim that they just know when they're in love, best friends will just know that it's nothing more, nothing less.

He won't treat you chivalrously, as good or bad as that may sound. To him you're one of the guys, and to you he's one of the girls. He'll grapple with you over something clenched in your hand until it hurts to fight back, will carry your bag if need be, but won't object to letting you carry his jacket while he walks around the auto show like a kid in the confectionery isle.

If a boyfriend told me never to speak with my best friend, along with other close guy friends, I'd tell him to find some mindless bitch who actually does everything her boyfriend would demand. Because if you date me, you date the whole caboodle – the family, the girlfriends and the best friend. There's no competition, the boyfriend and the boy friend are in a different race altogether.