In an interesting article
in yesterday’s Staten Island Advance, relationship columnist Elise McIntosh
looks at the distinctions between friends and frenemies.
She interviewed the
authors of the new book Friend or Frenemy: A Guide to the Friends You Need and the Ones You Don’t (Harper 2008) by co-authors Andrea Lavinthal and Jessica Rozler (discussed in a previous blog post here) and also solicited my
thoughts about these ambivalent relationships.
McIntosh notes that
most people have someone in their lives “who falls in-between a true-blue pal
and full-fledged foe.” These are the women with whom we’re ostensibly “friends”
but who are very unsettling to be with for a variety of reasons.
What do you think of the term
frenemy? Is it helpful to have a word
that allows us to better identify, talk about, and resolve these
challenging relationships?
by Irene S. Levine, PhD