Life

8 Signs Someone Is Your Frenemy

by Kat George

Frenemies are the worst kind of friend. A frenemy is someone you love to hate, and hopefully as you get older, you find it easy to weed out these people from your life. I certainly do my best to stay away from the kinds of friendships that are based on underhanded comments and competition. Because as we know, the best friendships are mutually supportive and emotionally fulfilling. Frenemy-ships are the exact opposite of that. Funny Or Die has tackled the frenemy relationship in a hilarious episode featuring the always incredible Eliza Coupe. The video sees two best frenemies running into each other at a bakery only to dive effortlessly into a Hunger Games style, passive aggressive verbal war with one another about their impending weddings.

It's really funny, and even if you've never had an ongoing frenemy, you're lying if you haven't loved to hate someone in your life, and engaged in some kind of one upmanship with them. Everyone is guilty of this kind of crap, and even if you've outgrown it now, you can't pretend like you've never been there. Eliza Coupe, as always, is exquisitely manic. Here are a list of things, according to both the video and personal experience, that can help you identify if someone is your frenemy:

1. Thinly-veiled annoyance at running into each other

Whenever you unexpectedly run into your frenemy, you'll be disgusted. She/he will be too, and neither of you will disguise it will. There's generally a lot of flamboyant hugging, "DAHLING!"-ing and proclamations of "What are YOU doing here?" that clearly mean, "No, seriously, what are you doing here, where I am? Please get out of my life. You don't deserve to even be here."

2. Conversation is mostly passive aggressive and condescending

None of your conversation is ever normal. It's all passive aggressive statements with a condescending twist, designed to make you feel like you're some how superior, and your frenemy is inferior.

3. You give each other backhanded compliments

Oh, the backhanded compliment! This is the staple of frenemy relationships. Like saying, "Congratulations on your new job, it must be such a relief to be doing something so mindless!" Compliment with a nice dose of "But I still think you're shit, and so should you."

4. You both brag about your successes but only to make the other feel bad

The only reason you tell your frenemy about your achievements is in the hopes that that will make them feel bad about themselves. Horrible, right? They're doing the same thing to you as well, so I guess you're both giving as good as you get.

5. Never actually being happy for each other

With all the braggagio between you, you'll never actually be able to be happy for your frenemy, and he/she will never really be happy for you. That's not friendship. In real friendships, you're happy when your friend is happy. Frenemy-ships are fueled by jealousy.

6. Everything a competition

Frenemies have the attitude of "Anything you can do I can do better." Your relationship with your frenemy is about winning, and you're both always trying to best the other, so whatever they have, you must have one better than.

7. Both acting like you have something to prove to the other

The competition has less to do with being competitive as it has to do with your particular dynamic, and feeling like you have something to prove to one another. Think about your good friends, and you never feel like you've got anything to prove. You can be vulnerable and sad around them, and admit your failures. You NEVER admit failure to a frenemy, because to a frenemy, you have to prove that your life is perfect.

8. Sabotaging one another

I used to have a frenemy who would constantly buy me junk food and encourage me to eat bad things so I wouldn't be thinner than her. Insane, right? Frenemies will always sabotage you, whether it's telling you an ugly dress looks good or making passive aggressive statements about you to your crush, and sometimes you'll be so caught up in how delicious cheeseburgers are to even notice.

Watch the full video below:

Images: Funny Or Die(9)