Tag Archives: frenemies

How To Write A Birthday Card To A Frenemy

Childhood Frenemies
The crappy friends we once thought were awesome. Read More »

This lovely letter allegedly written to Joan Crawford was found in Bette Davis’ desk drawer. Bette at her bitchy best, this is a shining example of how to stick it to a frenemy on her birthday. These two were bitter rivals for more than 30 years. Some say they fought over actor Franchot Tone, the man who became Joan’s second husband. But there are other rumors that Joan was in love with Bette and Bette didn’t return the sentiments. Or maybe it was just a case of egomaniacal jealousy. Whatever the real reason for the most famous frenemies of all time, these two made a sport of insulting each other. “Tell those caterpillars on your forehead that it’s time to turn into butterflies.” Damn, that’s cruel. And the dig about Joan’s daughter, Christina? Yikes. This must have been written post Mommie Dearest. I wonder if Joan ever received these birthday wishes? Or if she wrote back? I would loved to have seen that letter. [She Monster]

Girl Talk: When Mean Girls Attack

Digital Friendships
Is the computer killing our bonds with friends? Read More »
Childhood Frenemies
The crappy friends we once thought were awesome. Read More »
College Friendships
campus confidential
Friendships at college aren't about having one big clique. Read More »

Mean girls happen. They happen at 9 years old on the playground. At 21 years old in the sorority. They happen in blockbuster Lindsay Lohan movies.

And for me, they happened when I was 27. Keep reading »

Childhood Frenemies: The Crappy Friends We Thought Were Awesome At The Time

Having a frenemy sucks. But at least there is some sort of unspoken agreement there—that you both acknowledge the sense of competition. The other night, some friends and I were talking about the concept of frenemies at a bar and I realized that I actually had my very first one in high school—only I had no idea that’s what was going on. Leslie* and I were best friends for about a year. But though I couldn’t identify it at the time, there was definitely something off about our friendship. Leslie would always ask me what score I got on a test, only to tell me that she had done better (even if it wasn’t true). And when I told her about the awesome job I’d gotten at a local movie theater, she apparently went in and applied without saying a thing to me about it. But the worst was when I told her about a mega crush I had on a guy in one of my classes. Apparently, at a party one night, she made out with him. When another friend told me this, I confronted Leslie. “Oh,” she said. “I wanted to find out for you if he liked you or if he would kiss another girl.”

At the time, I actually thought, Of course! She was just doing reconnaissance for me. I’m so lucky to have a good friend who looks out for me. But now I get it: she always needed to one up me to make herself feel better.

Talking to other women, it seems like a lot of us had this type of proto-frenemy relationship like this and didn’t quite realize what was going on. After the jump, The Frisky staff tells their tales. Add yours in the comments section. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: My Bully Was My Best Friend

I met Rebecca when I was eight and forced by my parents to join an AYSO soccer team called the “Killer Bees” because my mom thought it imperative that even scrawny girls who much preferred watching late night re-reruns of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” should get out and enjoy bitter winds of Chicago fall on the lakefront.  Early on, my feminist mother had adopted a policy that my brother and I had to do the same extracurricular activities, a policy that sometimes made me the only girl at a football camp or meant that both my brother and I had to take carpentry lessons.  In this case, my six-year-old brother had become a soccer fanatic overnight and I had landed in a pair of golden knee guards. (To this day I consistently get panic attacks when someone  peppily utters the phrase “Shake it Off!” ) Keep reading »

5 Signs Your Friend Is Really A Frenemy

Our generation, the trailblazers that we are, will leave a lot of different marks on this world, but none more significant than our ability to create new (and fabulous, mind you) words. Sexting. Legit. Facebooking. Fab. Whatevs. Whether we’re abbreviating them or combining them, we’re creating them, and we’re creating them with very specific purposes in mind.

How else would you describe a friend that acts like your enemy? Someone who you think you can trust, but you really can’t? Someone who makes you feel worse while she pretends she’s trying to make you feel better? This person is not your friend. But she’s not exactly your enemy either.

She’s your frenemy. Keep reading »

Keith Richards Says Mick Jagger Has A ‘Tiny Todger’

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger

“It was the beginning of the eighties when Mick started to become unbearable. He started at first to annoy me and then slowly enraged me… [Marianne Faithful] had no fun with his tiny todger. I know he’s got an enormous pair of balls—but it doesn’t quite fill the gap.”

—Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones claims in his new book, Life, that he and Mick Jagger haven’t been buds in decades. Keith also took the opportunity to discuss the size of Mick’s member. And people say only women have frenemies? [NY Daily News] Keep reading »

Little Frenemies On The Prairie

According to Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on the TV show “Little House on the Prairie,” all was not so quiet on the western front. In her new memoir, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch (awesome title!), she admits that there was some major behind-the-scenes tension between herself, Melissa Gilbert (Laura Ingalls), and Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls). Keep reading »

The Frenemies Behind Harvard Race Email Scandal

Last week, the interwebs frothed over an email written by a Harvard Law student who is a member of their famed Law Review. The author of said email wrote that she could not rule out “the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.” It’s a statement even more extreme than the one that got Larry Summers in deep doo-doo a while back. This email was forwarded to the website Above the Law and while they kept the writer’s name under wraps, other websites began to identify the author as third-year law student Stephanie Grace. (Above, on the left.) Harvard top brass quickly denounced the email and folks started petitioning the judge Grace was set to clerk for to make sure she didn’t get the position.

So how did this whole nasty thing start? Supposedly, with one friend confronting another about sleeping with a third friend’s ex-boyfriend. Keep reading »

Dating Don’ts: 5 Friends You Don’t Need

Who was the first person you called the day your ex dumped you? Or that time you found a weird bump on that very private body part? Or the day you stumbled across that pair of barely worn Christian Louboutins at the Goodwill?

If you’re like me, you called a girlfriend. While I love my man and adore my cats to what some might consider a scary degree, the relationships I have with my girls is on an entirely different plane. They’re the funniest, smartest, weirdest (in a good way!) gaggle of broads I’ve ever met and I feel lucky every day to have them around.

It wasn’t always this way. I’ve had to prune my posse (please note that I’ve also been kicked out of people’s lives as well) and have discovered some types to avoid. Keep reading »

Why Do Women Have Frenemies?

This weekend, The New York Post ran a piece by author Lucinda Rosenfeld called “Why Women Are Frenemies.” Rosenfeld has a book coming out that’s related to the topic called I’m So Happy for You: A Novel About Best Friends, and in her essay she implies that the root of most female frenemy relationships is jealousy. I like Rosenfeld’s writing — she’s best known for What She Saw — but I’m a little resistant to the notion that all women engage in these “frenemy”-type relationships, and that if they DO have them, it all comes down to being jealous. She writes:

“For girls in their early 20s, rivalries tend to revolve around beauty and the attention of men. Later, it becomes easy to measure your lot in life (against that of your best friends) by the size of your wedding ring, the square footage of your apartment, the number of zeros in your or your husband or partner’s salary, and whether or not your kids got into a gifted-and-talented program.”

Really? I don’t have any frenemies I can think of, though I do have a few friends who occasionally grate on my nerves. But anyone who would ever fall on a list of enemies — even just for an hour or a day — is not someone I think I would call a friend to begin with. To find out just how true Rosenfeld’s theory is, I asked some fellow women about their experiences with “frenemies.” Keep reading »