There are definitely some behaviors that two friends should not engage in if they’re trying their best to uphold their friendship (read: attempting to ward off temptation, hormones, and IKEA).

Thing is, the fact that you are just-friends doesn’t mean that there won’t be any flirting or touchy-feely going on. Nope. It just means that both parties will generally make it a point not to let things get too far.

With that mind, let’s discuss a few things that Friends Just Don’t Let Friends Do, While Trying To Remain Just Friends.

1. Friends don’t let friends give each other backrubs.

If you’re trying to give your friend a backrub, you’re trying to see each other naked. Point blank. Period. Rubbing of any sort is sensual. Why do you think the genie shows up AFTER you rub his lamp? Because he’s all up and excited. You can’t just knock on the lamp. He won’t answer. But rubbing? Oh yeah, he’s coming.

Pun.

2. Friends don’t let friends kiss on the lips.

Short of being gay, there’s generally not a good reason to be kissing your just-friends on the lips at all. Then again, if there was any sort of tension in the air or awkwardness due to desire, you wouldn’t do it anyway since we all know when we’re in the question phase, we over analyze our every step anyway. But just to be on the safe side, if you do decide to kiss your friend and you start tasting Kool-Aid you know you didn’t drink…don’t say I didn’t warn you. And you can’t really be mad…you kissed each other. It’s yo’ fault.

3. Friends don’t let friends sleep with each other.

We can add, or touch people in their special places to that as well.

Fellas…if you EVER meet a woman who tells you she can have sex with you with no strings attached…throw something at her and run like hell. She’s lying. No matter how much she tries to convince you she can, she’s a liar.

Just don’t sleep with your friends. It just doesn’t make sense. Sure, we all have our moments of weakness, but you have them with folks you’ve thought about in vertical terms. If you go to thinking about your friends in vertical terms, it seems counter-intuitive to think that they’re actual platonic friends. So stop it.

4. Friends don’t let friends hold each other while sleeping.

Now this one gets tricky. I believe that a man and a woman can sleep in a bed together and not touch each other and it be all good. Hell, I’ve done it. It’s easier than it sounds. But if one person goes all cuddling up to the other one in the middle of the night and wants to be held, I’m raising a red flag. Holding is a prime way for feelings to develop. And you wouldn’t just snuggle up to anybody, now would you? Nope, somebody you truly trust and care about…and if you truly trust and care about them and are all arm locked and wake up and looking into each other’s eyes and smiling, you may end up going to the zoo. Zoo is a where love happens.

Besides, cuddling leads to relations. See #3.

5. Friends don’t let friends hate on other love interests and relationships.

We’ve all seen it happen. Some dynamic duo of platonicity hangs tough and swears that there’s nothing going on until one of them meets somebody else. All of a sudden they can’t stop talking about how jacked up it is that things are going the way they are…then somebody throws around the, “they should have known I liked them, even though we never talked about it…” If you got beef, then clearly you need to re-evaluate their place in your life.