One day, Friend X brought up the topic of secret guilty pleasures. You know what I’m talking about; those ritualistic delights that we only share with our most-trusted confidants. She hesitantly described her hidden stash of imported chocolate, which she keeps, fittingly enough, stored amongst her tampons.

She said, “I admit I like to run a hot bath, soak, and break out the decadent sweets.” Then X added, “My husband thinks I’m smoking a joint in there… I don’t mind. I’d rather him think I’m getting high than getting fat.”

There is an art to these secret-sharing sessions, a universal book of rules. Rule number one: everyone who is privy to a secret is, therefore, also required to divulge a little hush-hush all their own. This way the balance of power is maintained.

My friend looks at me with these yearning eyes that seem to plead, ‘please, please tell me something even crazier than what I just told you!’

Well, sometimes I spend hours pursuing the Craigslist housing ads for different cities. The words hesitantly drip-drop out of my mouth like melting icicles.

You see, when my house gets to the point where people begin to comment on the beautiful beige color of my white walls and my son is literally feeding the ants in our bathroom as a result of 4-year-old boy “aiming” issues; I find relaxation in the fantasy of a newly-painted, toothbrush-scrubbed perfectly polished home.

Another friend piped in, eager to participate in our Ya-Ya Sisterhood bonding.

“Ok, you have to swear you’ll never tell anyone,” she rhetorically sputters like a car just about to run out of gas. “I posted my profile under a fake name on match.com,” she admitted.

“I would never even dare reply to any of the people that contact me, I just love the ego-boost of having men ‘check me out’ on a daily basis.”

It seems like with every girly, guilty bliss, comes an equal desire to confess, and while these rants of crazy joy are usually welcome, occasionally I would like to take a stand against one’s freedom of speech, and disobey these laws of female confession.

For instance, there was a couple I met just two days after our family moved to Portland, Maine. We were all from San Francisco, had kids the same age, and I even shared the same birthday as the wife. It seemed like a perfect match. Two months later, giddy on a glass of wine and overindulged in some of the best pad thai in the city, they confessed their secret pleasure to me…

“We are really into threesomes and…would like to ‘be’ with you.”

And while I could have gone into some brilliantly crafted story about how I was conceived in a threesome while my parents were high on quaaludes, instead I opted for, “Wow! Thank you for sharing.”

And, while not adhering to the strict girl-code-of-conduct I am sworn to by birth; I offer to you the top-secret rule number two: every once in a while, rules are meant to be broken.