Frenemies

It's easy and comforting to think that our relationships can be tucked into neat little categories like friend, BFF, acquaintance, lover, and coworker--in reality, most relationships are as complex and indefinable as the people who create them. A new term "frenemy", made popular by the movie "Mean Girls", gives a new outlook and perspective on the fact that friendships are not always friendly, nor as simple and clear cut as they appear to be on the surface. It's easy to seperate friend from foe, but recognizing friend from frenemy...not so much.

A frenemy can be described in many ways: an enemy disguised as a friend, a person whose words and actions bring you down intentionally, or a relationship that is mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive in a non-healthy fashion and peppered with mistrust.

There are different ways to figure out if you in fact have a frenemy in your life. Understand that there are variations of frenemies. They can be calculatingly manipulative to outright and obviously selfish and unkind. Just because a person doesn't mean to be mean doesn't erase the impact of the blow.

Paying attention to how you feel in the presence of your potential frenemy is important. Do you clam up when they come around? Do you feel competitive when they discuss work, hobbies, love life, or finances? Do you often talk bad about them to others? If you find yourself continually acting less than the most loving and centered version of yourself when the two of you get together, a frenemy may be in your life.

Never second-guess your initial reactions to things a potential frenemy may do or say. The first feelings we have about people and situations are most accurate. Look for a pattern of constant emotionally draining situations and insensitivity. Occasional let-downs or acts of insensitivity don't exactly qualify a person for frenemy status...people are flawed and therefore friendships will inevitably follow suit. However a person who constantly uses you for their own personal agenda, shoots insults at you, breaks promises, ignores your requests and manipulates you (even passive-aggressively) goes well beyond the friendship margin of error.

Try to compare and contrast a frenemy's personality traits against those of someone you know with complete certainty is a friend. Traits become more apparent when viewed this way because a potential frenemy may have more positive qualities than negative ones. Frenemies will often share your values and interests. I mean, if you didn't have these things in common, it would be easy to qualify your frenemies as enemies and move on from them.

If you just can't decipher between friend/frenemy, ask a definite and trusted friend for validation. Sometimes, a third party perspective can help you sort things out.