Relationships

Frenemies

Those friends you love to hate

What exactly is a frenemy?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: a person who is or pretends to be a friend but who is also in some way an enemy or rival.

We all have them, those people in your life who are both friend and foe.

We look forward to seeing them until we see them.

As our body recoils, we prepare for the onslaught of mixed feelings. We smile, hug, and kiss, pretending to be overjoyed, hiding our trepidation.

These people make us nervous. We are drawn to them when they show us affection. We are repelled by them when they show us hostility. They confuse us. We want to trust them, but we don’t.

They are the friends you love to hate.

I believe they fall into one of three categories:

1.) The Competitor

As I write this, my blood starts to boil. I am thinking of Wanda. She’s tiny, cute, energetic, creative like Martha F***ing Stewart, and a bitch. It took me a while to see how passive-aggressive she was, although there were red flags early on, that I ignored.

When I first met Wanda, we clicked right away. I was excited to have a new friend in the neighborhood. But soon after, I saw the first red flag. I received a card in the mail with two ladies having a glass of wine. The message read “It’s hard being friends with you, I never know who the men are whistling at, you or me? Love, Wanda.

Now that’s just creepy.

I felt early on that she viewed our friendship as a competition. I remember one summer I had just lost about 20 lbs and was looking pretty damn good. Our neighborhood group went out for dinner and people were commenting that I looked nice. She smiled her cute dimpled smile and said “You do look great, but we liked you better when you were heavier.” Burn!

And then there was the time I wore my hand-knitted poncho and the girls gushed with compliments. Except for Wanda who said, “I know Ponchos are a fad now, but I’m kind of a rebel, I like things that are unique.”

What drives people to respond this way?

On the other hand, she was also the friend, first at the door with a casserole when my mom died. She came armed with flowers, a candle, and candy when I was sick. She brought us homemade apple pies and biscuits made from scratch, just because.

“Isn’t she amazing?” the girls would say. “Yes,” I’d agree. But I wondered, was she being nice or just trying to impress me? Maybe I was just jealous, as she humble-bragged about getting up at the crack of dawn, eating 1/2 of a Hershey's kiss when I confessed to eating 1/2 of the bag. Being a size 6, unlike my size 12.

Then one day, I had enough. I did not feel good being around Wanda.

There was no fanfare, no declaration of separation, no argument. I just slowly faded away from her, and it was liberating!

Another tactic used by frenemies is to give an opposing view. I call this category:

2.) The Antagonizers

Just getting back from a weekend at the beach I remarked to Joyce “That was just what I needed. We sat on the beach the whole day, watched the waves roll in, and read a book. It was perfect”.

I thought she was going to have a heart attack. “Oh my God, if someone told me that I had to sit on a beach all day and do nothing, please, just shoot me.” Immediately, I went into defense mode and said, “Oh, it was so relaxing and beautiful, I, really enjoyed it” She didn’t get the hint that I was annoyed, or maybe she did, but just didn’t care, because she went on to explain, “Well don’t get me wrong, I like the beach, but I have to be doing something productive. I can only sit for 5 minutes, then I need to walk 5 or 6 miles, or take a long bike ride or at least walk and collect shells, but that’s just me.”

I’m an avid reader, so I’m often asked what am I reading. Her comment “I think it’s great that you read, I just never wanted my kids to see me sitting in a chair all day doing nothing but reading” Ouch!

Once I was recommending a really good show on Netflix and this same opinionated-put-you-in-your-place-friend/foe smiled coyly and said, “Sounds good, but I never watch TV. It’s such a waste of time’.

Well, whoop de doo, Good for you!

The next Category, and by far the worst is:

3.) The Authority

The other day Nadine asked how I was feeling after my gallbladder surgery. I thought she wanted the truth, so I answered. “Recovery has been harder than I thought. Sometimes I worry that I’ll never feel better”.

Standing there on the sidewalk, listening to her tell me what I needed to do was a slap to my system. “You need to… Don’t talk like that… You have to keep positive…and the lecture went on and on.

Giving advice made Nadine feel good, but made me feel worse.

.Well there you have it, my top 3 frenemy categories.