1970’s Cosmo’s Etiquette Do’s/Don’ts

You may borrow from… Money (you always pay that promptly) and furs or costume jewelry, unless you know she has a phobia about loaning. Never take anything irreplaceable.

The Use and Abuse of Friends

A friend is someone who likes you. Sexual love is cosmic, visceral, sensual… Love for a friend is emotion fed by the intellect, it is like raised to the highest degree. Your need to like and be liked is as basic as your need to be loved. And friendship requires care and feeding and exercise. Friends are to be used. Use is not a dirty word. Abuse as a dirty word. Here’s a chart of what one thoughtful friend can expect from another… And some demands that strain the bonds.


DO, DO, DO

A friend is someone…

• Who likes you and makes you know it. 
• You like you make sure she knows it. 
• To do nutty things with… And not even question what the hell are we doing? 
• You may borrow from… Money (you always pay that promptly) and furs or costume jewelry, unless you know she has a phobia about loaning. Never take anything irreplaceable. 
• You can spill everything to —your secrets and wildest fantasies. Who confides in you. Intimacy must go both ways.
• Who understands… even when she couldn’t possibly agree or do the same thing. With real empathy. 
• Who listens. 
• You can tease… But carefully; just a layer of love softens the hostility in a tease.
• Warm.

DON’T, DON’T, DON’T

A friend is someone… 

• You never gossip about behind your back, except if it’s flattering. 
• You never put on airs for… It’s not necessary. 
• You never borrow a fragile dress from. Of course, she would offer to clean it, each dress has just so many trips to the cleaners built into its lifespan. 
• You don’t engage in a hostile competition. 
• You are not trying to remake. Help, yes, but reform, no.
• Whose confidence you will not betray for love or money or publicity… Except your husband, but she knows that.
• You would not make choose between her man and you.
• You are not always breaking dates with because something better came along — a man. Sometimes, but not always.
• Whose boyfriend you do not feel compelled to seduce.
• Whose husband’s advances you tease off and do not report.–From “The Cosmo Girl’s Guide to the New Etiquette,” 1971

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia