We’re all well aware of the friends every girl needs, but what about the friends nobody wants? Is there anything more annoying than having to avoid a friend that you hate? It’s like, “stop calling me every day and messaging me on Facebook all the time and showing up in my bedroom when I’m sleeping.”

No matter how mean you are or how many times you send out restraining orders, these are the friends that keep clawing their way back into our lives.

1. The Clinger
The clinger’s ability to latch on to you and never ever let go puts any reoccurring STD to shame. She’s running next to you at the gym, She’s ordering shots next to you a the bar, and she’s lathering right alongside you as your shower. Your subtle text messages, “do not come over tonight under any circumstances or I will spike your drink with laxatives” don’t seem to have any impact on her willingness to always be right by your side.

2. The Pauper
The pauper actually gets herself off on complaining about being poverty-stricken, despite being comfortably middle class. It’s hard to avoid her since she’s been sleeping on your couch for the past 6 months – it’s not like she afford rent on top of going out every night. She’ll not only make you feel guilty about doing any shopping outside of the dollar store, but she’ll also make you feel like a complete a-hole for hesitating when she asks you to pick-up her bar tab, buy her new notebooks for class, and get her a year-long Match.com membership.

3. The Millionaire
The millionaire not only grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth, but also 6 credit cards, and a bundle of foreign currency. She likes nothing more than to literally light a fire and burn money right in front of your eyes.  When she’s not using dollar bills to clean off her Blackberry screen, she’s explaining the (OMG so obvious) benefits of $150 white tank tops.

4. The Ego Maniac
The Ego Maniac booked such a long power trip that you’re not sure that she’ll make it back in time to start her year-long expedition riding on the world’s highest horse. She doesn’t brush her teeth or walk down the stairs without updating her Twitter to tell everyone how well she did it. Needless to say, She’s not at all interested in your life unless she can somehow figure out how spin the recent death of your grandmother into a story of how the Starbucks barista complimented her on her coffee ordering skills.

5. The Planner
The planner is the ringleader of incredible fun and unforgettable good times within your group of friends. Or so she thinks in her head as she manically pencils in lunch dates and Facebook chat sessions six months from now. Everyone else refers to her as the Nazi that made you sleep on the sidewalk for a week while you waited in line for concert tickets that didn’t even sell out.

6. The Complainer
The complainer alternates between wallowing around in self pity and sighing until someone finally asks what’s wrong. And something is always wrong. Her computer froze for 6 minutes at work or everyone keeps chanting Eeyore whenever she speaks or, God forbid, her shoelace came untied when she was walking.

7. The Klepto
Forget leaving your wallet with her while you go to the bathroom or letting her spend time alone in your apartment unsupervised. The klepto will shamelessly pocket everything that’s not permanently attached to you. It’s absolutely amazing you how many times one of your possessions go missing just as the klepto finds the exact same one-of-a-kind item at some store on that street by that corner in that place.

8. The Social Media Junkie
Any amount of time spent with the social media junkie is meticulously recorded on Twitter and Facebook. Jackie is meeting up with John. Jackie is asking John what is up. Jackie is wondering why John always has last minute work things whenever they’re supposed to hang out. Jackie is so alone.

9. The Flirt
Forget ever picking up any guys when you’re out with the flirt becaue she has an amazing abilty to entice every single guy she meets. She’s a pro at the seductive arm grab and the “throw your head back and laugh while making sure your hair stays in place.” She’ll shamelessly go after any guy you’re interested in just to prove she’s sexier than you — her boyfriend be damned.

I remember going to college expecting to make some of the best friends of my life. It had always seemed that way — you have nice high school friends, but gradually they fade out of the picture and your college friends dominate your life. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to be?

As I arrived at school and plunged into the rigorous academic environment that was promised in the Princeton brochure, the social scene surprised me in some way. There were the usual kinds of people I expected — the jocks, the preps, the econ majors — but not the friendships I was looking forward to.

I had dining hall buddies (people to eat and swap jokes with), and homework buddies (people to frantically share answers on problem sets with), but there was no gang of girls sharing secrets and supporting each other the way there was in high school. I compared notes with other friends and they agreed; for one reason or another, no one had as close friendships in college as they did in high school.

Why?

It seems that high school is an altogether more social experience than college. The higher you rise in education, in fact, the more solitary and independent you’re expected to be, so if you get to grad school you’re basically holed up in your library cube  all day with little contact with the outside world.

People in college are independent and driven. They have career goals and they always have things to do and places to be, most of which don’t involve bonding. Even those so-called bonding sessions you think you are having seem like goals on the way to becoming the perfect, accomplished college student. That’s how the friendships seem to evolve as well: we need people to eat with, so we form dining-hall groups. We need people to help us with our work, so we form study groups. We need to bond with our sports team, so we hang out with other team members.

Friends just for the sake of friends are relatively rare.

College, in some ways, can be a lonely life. But that doesn’t mean connecting to people is impossible; you just need to know where to look.

Instead of just being drawn to the people on your hall out of geographic convenience, you’ll have to do a little sleuthing to find people who share your interests. Join a club related to what you feel passionate about. Chances are there’s a club on your campus that suits your interests, from literary magazines to ethnic identity groups to dance or film enthusiast organizations. If you’ve got problem-set buddies, that’s great, but maybe not everyone is taking the class because they love the subject. Seek out people in the class who really like what you do and talk about the homework together. Don’t just follow the crowd so you’ll have someone to party with on weekends — do a little extra work to find people you feel compatible with, and have lunch with them once or twice a week. That way, you can connect with people even if you don’t live close to them.

One thing you don’t want in college is to be hanging out with people who don’t care whether you fail or succeed, who only want to be with you as a step towards some other goal. Seek out people who will applaud your triumphs and sympathize with your hardships, and your social life on campus will be a vastly more rewarding one.

The first lesson I remember learning was the importance of sharing. I had to share my toys, I had to share my feelings and I had to share my gum with the rest of the class. Now, call me selfish, but I believe that some things in life should not be shared.

STDs, for example. Or guys?

In my mind, once a friend dates a guy, or cozies up with him for more than one night, he’s off the market to the rest of us. I mean, there’s a reason they call it “Sloppy Seconds,” right? But I’ve learned that it’s different for guys; they don’t mind hooking up with someone else’s leftovers. In fact, I know lots of girls who have made their way through an entire group of guys and none of them seemed to mind.

How can that be? Can guys really share hook ups like girls share tube tops? Let’s see what our guy had to say…

Even more than that, though, is my fear that a guy may judge me by the company I keep. I love my friends, but they can be a lot to handle. Especially when we are all together. Or when alcohol is involved (and isn’t it always?).

Do guys judge their girls on their friends? Will his feelings towards a girl change based on who she hangs out with? And would a guy still like me if he couldn’t stand the people in my inner circle? Friends are a huge part of anyone’s life (duh), so it’s an important question to ponder.

I asked a guy and here are his thoughts on the sitch:

[Photo courtesy of Pringleyum on Flickr.]

In reality, we’re all very disturbingly gross, incestuous lovers. Not only do most of my friends know the guys I date, but most of the guys I date know the other guys I date. It’s really fun, let me tell you. But I’m not the only one jumping through these intertwined romantic hoops. Many a friend of mine, actually, has dated another friend of mine. It seems to be the way the world works.

This is all fine and dandy until the couple starts paddling down good ol’ sh*t creek. It starts with a complaining IM message, email, text, or phone call. One friend is coming to you to have a heart to heart about what friend number two did wrong to hurt his or her feelings. And just like a Los Angeles smog, awkwardness starts seeping down from the sky and choking the entire room.

What am I supposed to say in these situations? Which friend am I more loyal to? What the f*ck?

Recently, two of my friends met at a party of mine. Their relationship kicked off with a sunset on the beach and was followed by 4 weeks of hot love-making and puppy-dog glances. But then my girl friend, Marie, had a reconnecting visit with her ex and didn’t really want to be so smothered by my boy friend, Pete. Which has forced me into the middle as Pete has been IMing me daily about Marie.

And this same situation has happened so many times.

My theory on it all?

If both people are my friends, then they are my friends. I’m going to be loyal to both of them. I’m going to be fair and honest with each friend without saying or doing anything to hurt the reputation or happiness of my other friend.

So when Pete asked me about Marie, I simply said, “I’m not sure what’s going on with her, but give it time, I’m sure the dust will eventually settle.”

The key is to not choose sides. That’s not fair. Be loyal to both of your friends in these situations – at least that’s my opinion. What do you think?

Well, you’re not alone, CC-ers. Story of my life.

Growing up, I always had friends; guys, girls…a whole lotta them. We’d all play, hang out and have fun with each other. As I started to get older, in high school, then in college, my circle of friends got smaller and smaller. My tight knit posse went from 30 people to 20 to 10 to 4. It’s not that I had fights with my friends that caused us to become distant, but the phone calls, emails, nights out and shopping trips all seemed to dwindle as our lives progressed.

I even started college with a large circle of people. As the four years came and went, my group, again, got smaller and smaller and now, fresh out of college, I keep in contact with three people, out of the roughly 50 I used to party with at school. Why? Is it because of something I’m doing wrong?

The answer is no. While, yes, I’d like to have more close friends, I learned that quality over quantity is what deems relationships everlasting. My three best girlfriends, two from high school and one from kindergarten, are still the people I laugh with, cry with and trust with anything and everything. Some people are not meant to have lots of close friends and – I have learned – I am one of them. It was a difficult thing to learn, but, finally, I am okay with that. I’d rather have three great friends, then massive piles of casual friends.

I’m not saying you can’t have 100 best friends; for some people that’s possible. But if you aren’t one of those people who get along with everyone, that’s completely fine, too. At the end of the day, your true friends will always be there…whether there are two of them or two hundred.

How many close friends do you have CC? Do you wish you had more?