Her Campus: Frenemies

December 21, 2011
By Cassie Potler
When You Realize the Friend is the Frenemy

This past summer, I found out I got the position as a writer on the Her
Campus team. I was super-pumped for the opportunity, and my friends and
family were excited for me, too. That is, all except one person. This
person was my best friend since freshman year of college.

We lived
together for three years, studied in the same major, and found happiness
in all of the same places. So why, if we were so close, couldn’t this
person be happy for me? Dr. Irene S. Levine, Professor of Psychology at
NYU Langone School of Medicine, defines a frenemy as "someone with whom you have an ambivalent friendship." According to Levine, who has been called "The Friendship Doctor" by the Huffington Post and PsychologyToday.com, "the person seems to be a friend, but then has periodic or frequent lapses in behavior that are antagonistic or undermining." Yikes. It seems I had mistakenly confused a frenemy for a friend…

Read the entire article here.

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