Dealing With Frenimies
Created By Kinjal Darukhanawala On 7 May, 2009
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Added By Kinjal Darukhanawala On May 7, 2009, 12:00 am
Country: India
Friends are the family we choose for ourselves, someone rightly said. When boyfriends disappoint us, when parents don't get us and when bosses crawl on our nerves, we turn to our last ray of hope - friends. Recently while reading one of the articles in the Mumbai Mirror about Friends and Frenemies I realized one very important thing. Are friends, enemies and frenemies all that different?
Our enemies were once are friends and our frenemies continue to be our friends. Like most human relationships, friendship too often turns into a codependent drama. Now this is not as gender biased as it may seem. Just the way two queen bees (so-called friends) are at loggerheads with one another, alpha men get territorial and insecure all the time, only their games are subtle (they might not get down and dirty or pull each other's pigtails).
We may play the favoritism game with our friends also - depending on who reflects what we choose or want to see - depending on the circumstances and situation. The too positive to handle friends may seem like a curse when you are in the mood to bicker and the cranky one may suddenly appear like the understanding person you have been looking for the whole time. So maybe in reality our friends never really change, it's only our perception towards ourselves and them that changes.
Another frequently noticed point - we may really dislike some traits, but most of our friends will have the very characteristics we disapprove of. We all hate being in the company of people who nag us, advice us more than our parents (mommy knows best - really too much to handle) and sometimes try very hard to be happy for us but still fail.
What am I getting at? Well, to sum it up, our friends might not be the perfect versions of Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel and Phoebe, but they have managed to be around despite our eccentricities. We may love them, we may hate them, but in the end we all know how empty life may seem without them. Maybe friendship is like Jazz music, we must appreciate it for what it is instead of trying to make it into something else (dialogue stolen from Sex and the City).
Our enemies were once are friends and our frenemies continue to be our friends. Like most human relationships, friendship too often turns into a codependent drama. Now this is not as gender biased as it may seem. Just the way two queen bees (so-called friends) are at loggerheads with one another, alpha men get territorial and insecure all the time, only their games are subtle (they might not get down and dirty or pull each other's pigtails).
We may play the favoritism game with our friends also - depending on who reflects what we choose or want to see - depending on the circumstances and situation. The too positive to handle friends may seem like a curse when you are in the mood to bicker and the cranky one may suddenly appear like the understanding person you have been looking for the whole time. So maybe in reality our friends never really change, it's only our perception towards ourselves and them that changes.
Another frequently noticed point - we may really dislike some traits, but most of our friends will have the very characteristics we disapprove of. We all hate being in the company of people who nag us, advice us more than our parents (mommy knows best - really too much to handle) and sometimes try very hard to be happy for us but still fail.
What am I getting at? Well, to sum it up, our friends might not be the perfect versions of Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel and Phoebe, but they have managed to be around despite our eccentricities. We may love them, we may hate them, but in the end we all know how empty life may seem without them. Maybe friendship is like Jazz music, we must appreciate it for what it is instead of trying to make it into something else (dialogue stolen from Sex and the City).