Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris went out for dinner last night at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica. That’s Rihanna’s favourite restaurant. And Jake Gyllenhaal likes it there too. That’s neither here nor there but, you know, it kind of is. Look at Calvin’s intense try-not-to-smile-but-really-I’m-loving-all-this-attention face. He’s not unlike Justin Theroux that way. Jennifer Aniston found someone who wants to play the game with her. And it seems like Taylor Swift might have as well.

But she’s definitely not buying a castle:

I love that song, New Romantics which won’t be her next single but I wonder now if, giving the timing, she wishes that was the one she chose. It’s about relationships now are defined by angst and drama. Like they go looking for it. SHE goes looking for it. And the high that they get off of it. The high that SHE gets off of it. As I’ve mentioned before, this is what she and Kanye West have in common – deriving art from conflict, even though this itself is in conflict with her message of collaboration and Squad Support. That message is blasted in neon during her interview with Vanity Fair for the September. Excerpts were released last week but the full article is now up at the source.

As expected, Taylor, the most prolific friend collector in Hollywood right now, namechecks throughout the piece. She talks about how she and her girlfriends, 20 to 25 of them, text each other constantly, all day, and would never sell each other out. They know everything there it to know, there are no secrets between them, and they will never break each other’s trust – not for a boy, not for a job…

Until one of them does. And then she’ll call them out for their lack of “moral code”.

“I’ve trusted people before in friendships or relationships and have felt betrayed. I judge people based on their moral code; I think someone is nothing without a moral code. I don’t care if you’re talented or celebrated or successful or rich or popular, if you have no moral code. If you will betray your friend, if you will talk about them badly behind their back, if you will try to humiliate them or talk down to them, I have no interest in having a person like that in my life.”

Sure. I do get it – I get how intoxicating it can be to be surrounded by women, in summertime. Haven’t we all had those summers? Everything is so much fun. Everything is Just.So.Easy. And with Taylor and her crew, with all that access, all that privilege, it’s like they’re being followed around by a wind machine all day – easy breezy, all the time.

Being a friend isn’t easy though. Being a good friend, like maintaining a strong marriage, requires a lot of hard work (hi Ben Affleck) that goes beyond surface cheerleading. It means you don’t jump to conclusions when someone writes something on Twitter and retaliate on Twitter. It means you make the awkward phone call, and expose your vulnerability, by asking them, straight up…

Um… were you talking about me? Or, um, am I just always making everything about me?

I’m referring, of course, to what happened between Taylor and Nicki Minaj. You can’t be the President of the Girl Power Club and then doubt another girl, undermine her, and then turn on her publicly at the same time. That’s why Taylor’s friendship philosophy has been widely criticised as entry level 101.

The way she runs her business on the other hand…

That’s actually what interested me the most about this piece – the few details provided about how steadily she manages all the aspects of her brand. How well she transitions between her fans, industry players, and label executives. How comfortably she wears all those hats. How in control she is at all times of her schedule. This to me is the sexiest thing about her.

Click here to read the full Taylor Swift Vanity Fair article.