A lot of people ask me, ‘What’s a frenemy?’ Even to the point of, ‘Is it a made-up word?’ Nope. It’s a real word and it’s been around for, shockingly, almost a century.
⁉️Did you know that father of psychology, Sigmund Freud, loosely used the term ‘frenemy’ to describe himself as,
“an intimate friend and a hated enemy have always been indispensable to my emotional life… not infrequently… friend and enemy have coincided in the same person.”
It’s first noted as being used circa 1930. A ‘frenemy’ is the opposite of a friend and combines the characteristics of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’ It’s someone you don’t trust because they’ve given you very good reason to not trust them. It’s traditionally someone whom you may be friendly with, despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry, and has been used to describe personal and working relationships. It’s also the ‘anchor’ persona in my book, “Behind Frenemy Lines: Rising Above Female Rivalry To Be Unstoppable Together.”
While ‘frenemy’ is a stand-alone term, I’ve come up with 9 personas used to describe the varying types, based upon specific behaviors. This blog, ‘Facing Female Frenemies’ is the first in a 4-part series, that takes a deep-dive into each persona and defines all of the ins and outs of what a ‘female frenemy’ truly is. This overview provides a summary of the personas and then the following blogs dive directly into the personas with details and personal stories.
The nine ‘frenemy’ categories are:
Ambivalent Frenemy
Competitive Frenemy
Controlling Frenemy
Jealous Frenemy
Negative-Difficult Frenemy
One-Sided Frenemy
Over-Involved Frenemy
Passive-Aggressive Frenemy
Unfiltered-Undermining Frenemy
Frenemies are slick. They often know very well what they’re doing but it can be hard to call out their behavior because they’ll deny it. Or, they may ‘gas-light’ you, turning on you so that you actually question yourself, which will make you feel like you’re the one doing something wrong.
Frenemies fall into the mean girl category and it’s important to know if you’re dealing with one. Not only is a frenemy an unhealthy relationship, it’s an energy suck. And they consume your precious time that could be spent with other, quality people.
Are you curious to learn more about what constitutes a frenemy? Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I take a deeper dive into each of these frenemy personalities.
You already are. It’s time TO BE.♥️
I say that it’s time to be different. It’s time to talk about frenemies.
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⁉️Interested in learning how ‘female rivalry’ impacts the workplace? 🎉DOWNLOAD my FREE .pdf guide, ‘5 Reasons WHY Good Women Walk’ to learn more!
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