Fickle Friends-Weir K

Kirsten Weir, a science writer and editor, has experience over a decade writing for newspapers, magazines, website and books covering topics from neurobiology, climate change and evolution. Weir is skilled at translating tough topics into article that will entertain, educate and inspire her readers. From the article Fickle Friends, she wrote her opinion about how frenemies can be bad for people and ways to understand these mentally difficult relationships can make them less painful.

Ambivalent friends

No friendship is perfect, but frenemies are consistently imperfect. Ambivalent friends have mixed feelings towards their friend; which describe a complicated friendship. In their friendships, qualities such as understanding and warmth are accompanied by jealousy, rejection and criticism. These problematic friends or frenemies can encourage others and can bring them down for any possible reasons in any time. However, some of us do love our friends and do not want to lose them, no matter how much we are in pain and difficulties in having them as our friends.

Frenemy include

• A person who give a hand and leave everything when his/her friend needs him/her, but in the end he/she criticizes and gossips about his/her friend.
• Give support and encouragement to his/her friends when times are tough, but he/she cannot take pleasure in their friends’ successes.

Quality over quantity

Humans are a social species; their life include interaction and communication with lots of  people. But, a person with no friend because he/she afraid cannot manage the frenemies, may get other taxing effects, including depression, hypertension and cognitive decline. People who have ambivalent friends also tend to get high blood pressure, heart rate and stress.

Apparently, if one want to be happy (and healthy); having lots of friends is much less important than having good ones. It is because, people are not really concern about thoughtless comment made by frenemies than one made by someone who are supportive or loved by that person.

In conclusion, ones may not need to give up on their frenemies if they know how to manage the friendships and control their own behavior, needs and try being the kind of friend they want the others to be.