I recently had a discomfiting encounter at the theatre when, rushing for drinks during the interval, I bumped into a woman whom I knew from work years ago. She had been a compelling mix of charisma, random acts of kindness and glib cruelty. Now here she was again. “Hi,” she said, beaming. “How are you?” Like a fool, I rushed to tell her everything I had been doing.
The woman interrupted my monologue. “That’s great. I’m so happy to hear you’ve finally sorted your life out.” And off she went, leaving me speechless. I tossed and turned that night, seething and pondering what she had meant. She didn’t know anything about my life, so why had she said that?
It was with a stab of recognition, then, that I read psychologist Adam Grant’s recent discourse about those “supposed friends who sometimes help you and sometimes hurt you”. Not for nothing did Grant write: “The most toxic relationships aren’t the purely negative ones. They’re the ones that are a mix of positive and negative.”
Why do these frenemies take up such disproportionate space? “The brain latches on to ambivalent relationships and pays them so much attention because we love a puzzle,” says Vanessa Van Edwards, human behaviour expert and author of Cues. “If we know for sure that someone is hostile, our minds are like: ‘Yep, got it, steer clear.’ But with frenemies your brain is working overtime. Do they like me? Do I like them? Was that fun? Was that horrible? What did they mean?” Van Edwards cites a recent example of a friend who commented on a photo she shared online. “She messaged me: ‘Oh dear, I’m not sure that’s the most flattering picture.’ Was she being well-meaning and helpful, or just mean? Because I don’t entirely trust her, I couldn’t figure it out.”
There can be confusion over the term frenemy. The first time I encountered it was in Jessica Mitford’s The Making of a Muckraker, in which she refers to “those fringy folks whose proximity, either territorial or work-related, demand the frequent dinner invitation and acceptance of their return hospitality”. She claims one of her famous sisters invented the term in childhood. “My sister and the frenemy played together constantly, invited each other to tea at least once a week, were inseparable companions, all the time disliking each other heartily.”
However, the first recorded use of the word (albeit with a slightly different spelling) was by anti-communist columnist Walter Winchell. Shortly after Stalin’s death in 1953 he wrote “Howz about calling the Russians our frienemies?” More recently, still in a political context, odd couple podcasters have embraced the term. George Osborne said of his co-presenter Ed Balls: “Ed and I are frenemies – once bitter foes, and now firm friends.” The same could be said of fellow podcasters Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart.
Whatever your definition of the word, scientific research is clear on one thing – ambivalent relationships are bad for your physical and mental health. One study from the University of Minnesota conducted among police officers revealed that those whose colleagues were sometimes supportive and sometimes not took more unauthorised breaks at work and were less committed than those whose colleagues consistently undermined them. Similarly, research done by the University of Utah measured blood pressure during social interactions by 102 participants. No surprise that blood pressure spiked when people were forced to interact with people they disliked. However, when they socialised with ambivalent friends, blood pressure was raised even more.
Steering clear of these connections when possible is probably a good idea then. But how do we go about distinguishing frenemies from other friends whose behaviour is sometimes vexing? Van Edwards has identified three different types of frenemy.
The first is the easiest to detect – the Jealous Frenemy. “On the surface, they want you to succeed but they will gossip about you behind your back and are jealous of your accomplishments and successes. This one can go both ways though – you could be just as jealous of them as they are envious of you.” I must confess, this was uncomfortable for me to hear. Maybe I needed to own up to the fact that I am jealous of my frenemy?
It is the unpredictability of ambivalent relationships that can be the most draining thing. Sarah Brill, a financial coach, has someone she would categorise as a jealous frenemy in her social circle. “A new person joined our group and I don’t know what it was exactly, but from the outset I got the feeling she wasn’t being completely honest with me. She would be cagey about her plans, like she was keeping me at arm’s length.” Over time, she heard that this friend had hosted social events from which she had been excluded. “Why would she do that? It’s as if she has this scarcity mindset when it comes to friends; she was jealous of me being close friends with others in the group and having more social opportunities than she does. I still don’t understand her behaviour.”
Although she no longer attempts to arrange one-on-one meet-ups, she still considers this individual to be a friend. Why? “As humans beings, maybe we don’t like losing friends,” she suggests. “I have to get along with her because she is part of this wider group, but she’s definitely a frenemy, and I’m sure she would say the same about me.”
The second type of frenemy is what Van Edwards calls the Undermining Frenemy, particularly prevalent in the workplace. “You know the type. You think they’re on your side and then they start making snide comments in front of the boss. They ask questions that make you to wonder if they are truly supportive or trying to hold you back.” The Undermining Frenemy operates outside the office, too. “So, say I tell a friend that I want to lose weight. Are they going to cheer me on or invite me to a bad brunch and bring me a cupcake?”
My friend Jason was locked in an undermining frenemy relationship with a neighbour during the pandemic (our friend group heard so much about him that he was nicknamed Public Frenemy No 1). “He was recently divorced, so my wife and I felt we should look out for him,” says Jason. “It was lovely to start with – snacks and wine in our garden on balmy evenings. We all got on really well. But I started to get weary of his boastful tales about his past glories in advertising, his wealthy family overseas and their fabulous homes.”
Things got a lot worse when, six months into lockdown, Jason’s dad died and he was made redundant in the same week. “He asked with faux concern: ‘Crikey, I wonder what the third thing will be?’ I wanted to punch him.” When Jason was looking for work and not having much luck, he “would start on about another neighbour of ours who worked in the same industry as me. ‘Now if he lost his job, he would have no trouble finding something else – he’s got the killer instinct you need in business.’ Maybe I was being oversensitive, but it wasn’t a great time for me.” Jason put up with it for ages but finally decided not to invite him round any more. “I still give him a friendly wave if I see him though.”
Jennifer Cairns, founder of Lady Rebel Club, a networking community for neurodivergent and disabled entrepreneurs, found herself the victim of an undermining frenemy when she met a new friend through work. “We had lots in common, similar interests and values, and some health stuff,” she says. “I invited her to collaborate on a big new project, but eventually had to backtrack because it really wasn’t a good business fit. From that moment on everything changed. As a neurodivergent person, I have found it difficult not to take what someone is saying at face value. If somebody says XYZ, I believe it, I don’t pick up on subtext or social cues easily.” Over time, she started to hear that “this person was going behind my back, saying lots of stuff about me. It affected my confidence … Even though I’ve had a lot of success since then, there’s still this little voice in my head going: ‘You’re reading this situation all wrong.’ It’s impostor syndrome.”
The third type of frenemy is the hardest to detect, labelled by Van Edwards as the Unsure Frenemy. She believes that this type of connection has become increasingly common thanks to social media. “Human beings love to put other people in boxes – it’s just what we do. But particularly when you are having a lot of interactions online with wider social groups, it can be really difficult to know where a person fits in your life. Are we business friends or actual friends? You are my best friend’s close friend; does that make you my friend? We like each other’s posts on Instagram and interact with each other. But I’m not sure I like you.” Van Edwards says that the problem online is there are few cues to pick up on. “In person, we look at someone’s hands, facial expression and tone of voice to size them up. You can’t do that on email, Slack and social media.”
What can we do about frenemies in our lives, particularly if they are in a fixed context such as work or our neighbourhood? “There’s no need to get into a slanging match to resolve ambivalent feelings,” says Matt Wotton, co-author of A Straight Talking Introduction to Therapy. “A certain amount of ambivalence in relationships is normal. Freud referred to it as ‘the mind divided’. We can take quite a transactional view of relationships, believing that they should always make us feel a certain way. That’s not realistic.”
Psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber agrees that ambivalence is not a reason to end a friendship. “A friend can be wonderful and kind, but also infuriating and flaky. Another friend can be witty and fun, but also scathingly critical and gossipy. You may be ambivalent about yourself, too – you like yourself some days, but there are moments when you actually get on your own nerves.”
The danger is that ambivalence can be addictive. “We can get hooked on intermittent reinforcement,” says Fox Weber. “If a friend is sometimes brilliant and at other times disappointing, you may get invested in trying too hard to bring out the best in them or bend yourself out of shape and adjust your own needs to make the friendship work. For emotional ‘overworkers’, a problematic friendship can become compulsive, demanding and draining. It can create inner conflict.”
In these cases, she suggests that we let go of the expectation that friendship has to stay at the same level of closeness. “Friendships should be allowed to reshape themselves. You can reduce the intensity but that does not necessarily mean you have to completely end it.”
If you decide that your frenemy is doing more harm than good, another option could be to dive in and confront them. “You could tell them: ‘When you do or say X, it really bugs me, it really upsets me for XYZ reasons,’” suggests Wotton. “They may fly off the handle, or they may find it really helpful and promise to tone down their behaviour.”
Van Edwards suggests doing a frenemy audit. “Give yourself 30 days and every time you see or interact with the person, answer these questions. Does having the person in your life make you better, smarter, happier, healthier or more excited? Are they taking anything away from you? Do you feel anxious when you see their name popping up on your phone? Do you feel low after meeting them? And then the next phase, if you’re still unsure, is for the next 30 days after that, avoid them and see if you feel better or worse without them. Basically, you’re putting the frenemy on probation.”
Friend probation may sound a bit extreme, but then again, maybe not. Fran Lebowitz reputedly once said: “[Friendships] are easy to get out of compared with love affairs, but they are not easy to get out of compared to, say, jail.” For me, understanding the dynamics of frenemies has been unexpectedly helpful. I surprised myself by inviting my frenemy for coffee and, more surprising still, I’m looking forward to it.
• Some names have been changed.
