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The age-old adage says that a dog is man's best friend, but what about a woman's best friend?

Women's car insurance specialist Diamond carried out its own Best Friends Survey to answer this very question, and found that according to women a woman's best friend is much more human than a man's; it's her girlfriends.

Second in the list is chocolate and rounding out the top five for women are a cat, a dog and make-up. Diamond also asked men what they think is a woman's best friend, and they put chocolate at the top of the list. The top five for each gender are as follows:

Diamond managing director, Sian Lewis, commented, "Women certainly value friendship above anything else as they see their girlfriends as most important to them. It's nice to see that men see how important girlfriends are but then take a more stereotypical route putting shoes and a handbag in their top five."

Those surveyed were also asked which celebrity they themselves would like to be best friends with. Women plumped for This Morning presenter Fern Britton while men went for funny man Peter Kay. Interestingly, Kylie Minogue appeared in the top 3 for both men and women, although probably not for the same reasons!

Sian continued, "This shows that men and women look for different traits in best friends. Women seem to want someone who's a good listener and shows empathy, and Fern Britton and Davina McCall's on-screen personas certainly come across like this.

"Men seem to look for a good sense of humour and someone they can have a laugh with, hence their choice of comedians. Kylie also comes across as a good listener for women, but certainly isn't a comedian, so I can't think why men would choose her in their list!"Â

Diamond has developed a Best Friend Calculator that you can use to rate your friends and see just how good a friend they are. All you need to do is visit the Best Friend's Club at diamond.co.uk, answer a few simple questions and the Best Friend Calculator will score your friends.