The opposite is also true. There’s a certain joy in watching your office enemy walk out of lunch with a bit of ketchup on her upper lip, and smiling politely as you pass (although I would tell her if I saw her skirt tucked into her underwear. I’m not a total monster.)

Here’s the problem with lady whiskers: It’s sky-high Awkwardness. Whether or not the woman cares, the level of Relief she would feel if you told her is unknowable.

Some women don’t worry about rocking some sprouts on their face. I knew one woman once - let's call her Gloria - and I remembered her name with the help of the hair coming out of her mole, which conveniently curved around in the shape of a G. It was black and a centimeter long. She must have seen it. She obviously just didn’t mind. But for me - superficial, neurotic me - I would want to know.

Which is why my best friends and I have enacted the Body Hair Pact (with the Facial Hair Clause). It’s a piece of friendship legislation I highly recommend for you and your best lady buds. Your friends must have your back, because you cannot see your own back hair.

“Basically, anything funky that’s going on,” one of my best friends said, circling an open palm around her face and torso as we had this conversation, perhaps the most important discussion of our 20-year friendship. “You have to tell me.”

I, Paulette Perhach, do swear to always let my friends know if there’s a noticeable hair poking out from their upper lip, if their unibrow is reforming, or if a mole on the back of their arm sprouts a creeper.

“Why all best friends should have a body hair pact to tell it like it is”