Defining Categories of Frenemy - Essay Example

A frenemy is often treated accordingly, with everyone being conscious of what that person is.

            Another type of frenemy is a person who is considered to be a friend but is constantly putting others in their group down. It is the type of friend that needs to be cut from the group, yet other friends are unwilling to follow through with it because they have had good times with that person and they consider all issues to be in the past. Those friends love to hate the frenemy, finding it almost unbearable to be around them, though not finding it in them to cut them loose. However, the reasons to keep them around tend to be vague, as opposed to the reasons that the person should be gotten rid of. In this case, it can be seen that other people have what it takes to make someone else a frenemy. Until that person is gotten rid of and can be considered simply an enemy, they will remain to be a frenemy.

            Yet another category of frenemy is someone who can be regarded as a competitor or a rival. They satisfy every requirement of a friend, and some are even considered to be best friends, but they are rivals of their friend. This holds especially with friends that are on rival sporting teams, or competition groups, or even two girls who have a crush on the same guy at school. The greatest difference between this version of the frenemy as opposed to the two previously mentioned is that the friends truly are friends. The ‘enemy’ portion of their friendship is often regarded with humor and is seldom taken seriously.

            An example of a frenemy can be seen throughout the movie Mean Girls, in which Cady originally befriends Regina and her cronies with the intention of someone who is an enemy. Cady becomes close to Regina, even though she is behind the majority of the vicious things that her friend Janice plans as revenge. Cady successfully fills the role of a frenemy as Regina is none the wiser about what she is doing. Regina is thoroughly convinced that Cady is one of her best friends, completely oblivious to the plots that were being planned behind her back. Similar scenarios can be seen in many high schools throughout the world, especially in large, popular cliques of girls (McDonell-Parry, 2009).

            Oddly enough, what frenemy does not mean is friend or enemy, as the person that is the frenemy has an equal mix of characteristics of both these roles. A person can be a friend, or they can be an enemy, but they have to be an enemy disguised as a friend to be able to claim the term “frenemy.” A friend is someone that can always be depended upon. They take it upon themselves to make sure that they take care of their friends, keep them happy and positive, and do everything they can to encourage them to do their best. Enemies, on the other hand, will do anything in their power to make sure that others are suffering, especially if something is being put at stake, such as during a competition (Lavinthal, 2008). A frenemy does an excellent job at keeping themselves wanted by their friends, fulfilling some of the roles of a friend, but then they do not sugarcoat any distaste or negativity that they may have.

            The function of the term “frenemy” is to help set apart and distinguish between real friends and real enemies. A real friend cannot be an enemy, just as a real enemy cannot be a friend (DiMarco, 2010). When someone is a frenemy, they have evolved into a new type of friend and enemy. They are the friend that cannot be trusted, or even the enemy that can be trusted. When the line between friend and enemy begins to blur is usually when the term “frenemy” is put in its place. The word has become so common, mainly among teenagers, that people automatically know what the situation is.

            The term “frenemy” has been around since the late 1970s, though its meaning has hardly changed during the years. Originally meant to distinguish between rivals that attempted to get along, the term is still used in that context but also to describe a person that is a friend with many qualities that correlate with someone that is an enemy. Frenemies can be depended on as friends to be friendly and caring, but they can also be depended on to never let an insult go unspoken if they know they can cause trouble with it.