The New York Post ran a piece by author Lucinda Rosenfeld called \”Why Women Are Frenemies.\” Rosenfeld has a book coming out that's related to the subject called I'm So Happy for you personally: A Novel About Best Friends, and in her essay she implies that the root on most female frenemy relationships is jealousy. I love Rosenfeld's writing-she's most widely known for What She Saw-but I am a little up against the notion that all women engage in these \”frenemy\”- type relationships, which if they DO have them, everything comes down to being jealous. She writes:
\”For girls in their early 20s, rivalries have a tendency to revolve around beauty and also the attention of men. Later, it might be simple to measure your lot in everyday life (against those of your best friends) by the size your wedding ring, the sq footage of the apartment, the amount of zeros inside your or your husband or partner's salary, and whether your children got into a gifted-and-talented program.\”
Really? I haven't got any frenemies I can think of, though I do possess a few friends who occasionally grate on my nerves. But anybody who would ever fall on the listing of enemies-even only for an hour or a day-is not someone I believe I would call a buddy to start with. To discover just how true Rosenfeld's theory is, Gurus some fellow women about their experiences with \”frenemies.\”
\”I've been trying to break up with a frenemy because she's the world's biggest flake. She's one of those women that always attempts to locate one flaw within an otherwise stunning ensemble just so she can call attention to it. I consider her an enemy for these reasons, but she also has the concept that only her time is valuable. That said, she's also a friend because we've known each other for more than 10 years. When we're together we can talk for hours about our lives or problems. Plus, we still have a great deal in common.\”
\”I accustomed to work at the sunday paper and that i caused someone I consider a frenemy. She made really friendly overtures when I began working there, but her friendliness was laced with undermining comments about my career. Despite the fact that we did not have the same job description, it became clear she felt threatened by me and did small things to prove she had a bit more power than me.
One time, an editor explained to book a celebration room and so i could do a phone interview to have an article and this girl wouldn't do it for me personally until I turned out to be her which i actually had permission in the editor. Another time, I lent her my digital tape recorder and she accidentally erased an interview I'd done with among the Kennedys. Another time, she asked me to be a snitch and let her know the other co-workers gossiped about in private so she could report it to the editor-in-chief. But most annoying was how she was just one year older, but she'd produce career advice as though she had a lot of wisdom, like, 'You must do this-' and 'So-and-so is a great person to know.'
Still, i was friendly. We browse the same magazines and books, saw the same movies, and chatted every single day at the office. Once we went shopping after work together, too. Nevertheless, I'm able to still recall the sweet taste of the schadenfreude I felt when I left that magazine for a better one and she was still there!\”
\”In senior high school, I'd a significant frenemy. We were best friends who hung out all of the time-and I believe we always were jockeying to become the superhero as opposed to the sidekick. I was competitive about from who got better grades to who could charm the guy in the 7-11 into letting us buy beer. We were also competitive about guys-we often liked the same guy and both attacked him. And, I'm not proud of it, but I definitely constructed with two of her boyfriends rather than told her about it. Just to convince myself which i could.
I thankfully haven't had that relationship with anyone since, but I do actually have a closest friend who I don't introduce to guys I'm seeing, because she has this nasty way of mentioning really embarrassing/unflattering/inappropriate stories and keeps happening them, even if I attempt to change the subject.\”
\”In general, I simply have women in my life that I love and like to spend time with. I am not friends with chicks who annoy me or cause me to feel feel bad about myself. Having said that, I'm type of forced friends with this particular one girl (she's the girlfriend of a friend) who's condescending and fake and flirts with my boyfriend. But she also offers some type of cancer, so i quickly think, Jesus, that must really f**king suck, and I feel a little harmful to not liking her.\”
\”I had a frenemy! She was clearly in love with my boyfriend at the time, and would go out of her method to act all sweet in my experience before him, then she was super nasty when he wasn't around. And, obviously, I appeared as if the irrational jealous one. The whole sordid so-called friendship ended when they finally did wind up sleeping together. I don't talk to both of them anymore.\”
\”There's one woman in particular I have been friends with for about 6-7 years. At the beginning we were sort of in love with one another, but as time passed I noticed that she'd gone through the same cycle of co-dependence with a series of people, and what started as a mutually obsessed camaraderie devolved right into a highly irritating bet on attempting to shake her neediness off.
Over the years, this woman has been hugely supportive of me in dire circumstances, and it is smart and funny and incredibly insightful, so in some ways I feel indebted to her. But that does not detract in the proven fact that at this time, I actively dislike her for a variety of reasons, which range from her mind-numbing loquacity to her overwrought sensitivity, passive aggressiveness, childish behavior and abhorrent table manners. I dread it each time she calls, however i continue to see her, hang out with her, speak with her on a regular basis, partly since i WANT to return to time after i saw only her good qualities and loved spending time with her, and partly because I'm afraid to lose any bridges she affords me. It's just bearable enough which i don't believe it warrants 'breaking up' together with her, but it's almost a tale, because every time I come back from spending time with her I find myself fuming about something or any other, and have on more than one occasion reasoned that it's simply not well worth the agitation.
I'm meeting her for drinks later tonight.\”
Clearly, many of these experiences with frenemies are associated with competition or jealousy of what another has. But one of the women whom I spoke to also had this to say, which I found rather insightful.
\”I've had periods of contentious relations with all of my close girlfriends, because the common denominator is me, I have to think that I'm the primary reason why all my tight friendships have undergone rocky periods not unlike those of a volatile romance. As I've grown older, I've come to realize that sometimes you simply grow aside from people with no quantity of talking it out can get you to the spot where you might once happen to be having a friend.\”
And is certainly not what involves define a person like a frenemy? It does not matter just how much you want to keep them like a friend, you will find stuff that make it impossible to get along?
What have your experiences been with \”frenemies\”?