Among the more colourful portmanteau words to have invaded pop culture in recent times is Frenemy – someone who appears to be a friend but often, insidiously, behaves like an enemy. If a couple of people in your personal circle send out such ambiguous signals and leave you feeling confused, here are top 3 ways to spot a Frenemy.
Back-handed compliments
Do words of apparent praise from this person actually leave a bitter taste in your mouth? If yes, watch out! Say you just pulled off a negotiation with that difficult client and instead of celebrating a sure-shot fat commission or a corner office coming your way, he/she says something like “Wow, now you can go on more out-of-town office tours in business class” , focussing on the minor negative – longer tour hours – rather than major positives like higher pay or perks.
Goading you to make bad choices
Yet another sign of a toxic pal is him/her pushing you to make choices that may be couched in trendy words but are clearly bad for you – a lip colour that makes your skin look paler or stripes that make you appear stouter. Once you have fallen for your frenemy’s suggestions, he/she is sure to smirk and point out that they would not be caught dead wearing THAT.
Makes you feel bad
So why do people stick with such toxic personalities at all – frenemies usually take pains to be nice in the initial stages of a relationship and by the time you have recognized them for what they really are, they have put you down to their heart’s content and thus got their pay-off before moving on to other unsuspecting souls. Again such personalities are usually hyper-social and appear to be very popular, fashionable which attracts people rather shy or less self-assured.
Unfortunately the high of being befriended by someone apparently popular is a very brief one as sooner than later, their words and attitudes leave you feeling more miserable and introverted than before.
So wise up to that cool girl/dude feeding off your insecurities and before he/she can hurt you again bid your frenemy goodbye!
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