Frenemy

Last updated

"Frenemy" is an oxymoron and a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy" that refers to "a person with whom one is friendly, despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry" or "a person who combines the characteristics of a friend and an enemy". [1]

Contents

The term is used to describe personal, geopolitical and commercial relationships both among individuals and groups or institutions. According to communication scholars, Carol Mills and Paul Mongeau, in interpersonal relationships, frenemyships are often maintained because the "relational benefits (e.g., saving face, maintaining social networks, and sustaining potential instrumental connections) outweigh negative ramifications of dealing with the relationship or terminating it." In these relationships, parties engage in civil interaction in public, but fundamentally distrust or dislike one another. [2]

History

"Frenemy" appeared in print as early as 1953 [3] in an article titled "Howz [ sic ] about calling the Russians our Frienemies?" by the American gossip columnist Walter Winchell in the Nevada State Journal . [4] [5]

The American-based author and activist Jessica Mitford claimed in 1977 that the word was coined by one of her sisters: "... an incredibly useful word…coined by one of my sisters when she was a small child to describe a rather dull little girl who lived near us. My sister and the frenemy played together constantly…all the time disliking each other heartily." [6]

From the mid-1990s it underwent a massive increase in usage. [7]

People

A Businessweek article stated that frenemies in the workplace are common, even in business to business partnerships. [8] Due to increasingly informal environments and the "abundance of very close, intertwined relationships that bridge people's professional and personal lives ... [while] it certainly wasn't unheard of for people to socialize with colleagues in the past, the sheer amount of time that people spend at work now has left a lot of people with less time and inclination to develop friendships outside of the office." [9]

Professional relationships are successful when two or more business partners come together and benefit from one another, but personal relationships require more common interests outside of business. Relationships in the workplace, in a sports club, or any place that involves performance comparing, form because of the commonalities between persons. Due to the intense environment, competitiveness can evolve into envy and strain a relationship. Frenemy type relationships become routine and common because of the shared interest of business dealings or competition.[ citation needed ]

Sigmund Freud said of himself that "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". [10]

Types

Frenemies can be divided into different categories based on their behaviors: [11] [12] [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fantasy (psychology)</span> Mental faculty of drawing imagination and desire in the human brain

In psychology, fantasy is a broad range of mental experiences, mediated by the faculty of imagination in the human brain, and marked by an expression of certain desires through vivid mental imagery. Fantasies are generally associated with scenarios that are impossible or unlikely to happen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dream interpretation</span> Assigning of meaning to dreams

Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams.

In psychoanalytic theory, the id, ego and super-ego are three distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus, defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche. The three agents are theoretical constructs that Freud employed to describe the basic structure of mental life as it was encountered in psychoanalytic practice. Freud himself used the German terms das Es, Ich, and Über-Ich, which literally translate as "the it", "I", and "over-I". The Latin terms id, ego and super-ego were chosen by his original translators and have remained in use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sibling</span> One of two or more individuals having at least one parent in common

A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child.

A love–hate relationship is an interpersonal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and hate—something particularly common when emotions are intense. The term is used frequently in psychology, popular writing and journalism. It can be applied to relationships with inanimate objects, or even concepts, as well as those of a romantic nature or between siblings and parents/children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infatuation</span> Intense but shallow attraction

Infatuation or being smitten is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion, usually towards another person for whom one has developed strong romantic feelings. Psychologist Frank D. Cox says that infatuation can be distinguished from romantic love only when looking back on a particular case of being attracted to a person. Infatuation may also develop into a mature love. Goldstein and Brandon describe infatuation as the first stage of a relationship before developing into a mature intimacy. Whereas love is "a warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion to another person", infatuation is "a feeling of foolish or obsessively strong love for, admiration for, or interest in someone or something", a shallower "honeymoon phase" in a relationship. Dr. Ian Kerner, a sex therapist, states that infatuation usually occurs at the start of relationships, is "...usually marked by a sense of excitement and euphoria, and it's often accompanied by lust and a feeling of newness and rapid expansion with a person". Phillips describes how the illusions of infatuations inevitably lead to disappointment when learning the truth about a lover. Adolescents often make people an object of extravagant, short-lived passion or temporary love.

In psychology, inferiority complex is a consistent feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient, or inferior, to others.

In psychoanalysis, cathexis is defined as the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea.

In the psychology of motivation, balance theory is a theory of attitude change, proposed by Fritz Heider. It conceptualizes the cognitive consistency motive as a drive toward psychological balance. The consistency motive is the urge to maintain one's values and beliefs over time. Heider proposed that "sentiment" or liking relationships are balanced if the affect valence in a system multiplies out to a positive result.

In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.

Transference is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, attitudes, desires, or fantasies that someone displaces are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely concerned feelings from a primary relationship during childhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passion (emotion)</span> Feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something

Passion is a term used to denote strong and intractable or barely controllable emotion or inclination with respect to a particular person or thing. Passion can range from eager interest in, or admiration for, an idea, proposal, or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity; to strong attraction, excitement, or emotion towards a person. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire, though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust, often incorporating ideas of ecstasy and/or suffering.

Splitting is the failure in a person's thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism wherein the individual tends to think in extremes. This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as "shades of gray".

<i>Ödipussi</i> 1988 film

Ödipussi is a 1988 German comedy film, written and directed by and also starring Loriot. It was the first of two feature films he directed, the other one being Pappa Ante Portas. The title is a pun on the Oedipus complex described by Sigmund Freud and the nickname "Pussi", the way the main protagonist is called by his mother throughout the film. Rumors that the title might also be a reference to the James Bond film Octopussy have been denied by Loriot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friending and following</span> The acts of adding someone to a list of "friends" or following them on a social networking service

Friending is the act of adding someone to a list of "friends" on a social networking service. The notion does not necessarily involve the concept of friendship. It is also distinct from the idea of a "fan"—as employed on the WWW sites of businesses, bands, artists, and others—since it is more than a one-way relationship. A "fan" only receives things. A "friend" can communicate back to the person friending. The act of "friending" someone usually grants that person special privileges with respect to oneself. On Facebook, for example, one's "friends" have the privilege of viewing and posting to one's "timeline".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oedipus complex</span> Idea in psychoanalysis

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex refers to a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire for her father and hostility toward her mother is referred to as the feminine Oedipus complex. The general concept was considered by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), although the term itself was introduced in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910).

A first date is the initial meeting during the dating process of two individuals, in which an effort is made to ask about each other, plan a potential relationship, and/or organize some sort of romantic activity. Aims vary between finding a romantic, platonic, or sexual partner for a short period, to finding a long-term spouse. Dating can vary between cultures, lifestyles, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

Relational transgressions occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules. These transgressions include a wide variety of behaviors. The boundaries of relational transgressions are permeable. Betrayal for example, is often used as a synonym for a relational transgression. In some instances, betrayal can be defined as a rule violation that is traumatic to a relationship, and in other instances as destructive conflict or reference to infidelity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freud's psychoanalytic theories</span> Look to unconscious drives to explain human behavior

Sigmund Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us".

<i>Freud</i> (TV series) German crime drama television series, first broadcast in 2020

Freud is an Austrian-German crime television series re-imagining the life of a young Sigmund Freud. The series produced 8 episodes which were first aired on ORF 15 March 2020 then released on Netflix on 23 March 2020.

References

  1. "frenemy, n." Oxford English Dictionary . Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  2. Mills, C. B., Yu, P., & Mongeau, P. A. (2023). Frenemies: Acting like friends but feeling like enemies. "Western Journal of Communication", 1-21.
  3. Rodgers, Nichole (March 4, 2011). "'Frenemies' and 'Bromances': Who Gendered Friendship?". HuffPost . Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  4. Cavendish, Lucy (January 17, 2011). "The best of frenemies". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  5. Oxford English Dictionary online: https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/273014
  6. Mitford, Jessica (2010). Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking. New York Review Books. p. 218. ISBN   9781590175293 . Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  7. "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
  8. Jap, Sandy (2017). "Are Your Partners Friends or Frenemies?". AMA.org. Archived from the original on February 9, 2019.
  9. Frenemies at Work, Liz Ryan, BusinessWeek, June 14, 2007.
  10. Quoted in Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1964) p. 37
  11. "Behind Frenemy Lines". Psychology Today. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  12. "The 3 Types of Frenemies". Psychology Today . Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  13. Edwards, Vanessa Van (April 7, 2017). "The Science of Frenemies". Medium. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  14. Clarke, Katrina (April 8, 2017). "Five types of frenemies and the signs that you have one". CBC News. Retrieved October 7, 2019.