I’ve never liked candy very much (I know, I am kind of odd like that). However, when I was younger, there was one brand of candies that I loved to eat ... the lifesavers. These candies came in various flavors wrapped together in a roll. I think one reason why I liked the lifesavers is because they were packed in a fun, colorful way. My friends and I would use the candy as a kind of friendship-ranking system. Since packages had certain amount of lifesavers of different colors and flavors, we ordered our friendships according to those colors and flavors that we would be willing to share with each other. For example, the red lifesaver was the best flavor, and because of this you would only share those coveted red lifesaver with your closest friends. The orange life-saver was not so highly coveted, and because of this, you could share it with other friends that were not necessarily your best buddies. Lastly, the green lifesavers that were not so hot, you could give to anybody. It is fun to think back to the dynamics of childhood friendships. As we grow older, friendships (and relationships in general) get more complicated ... and we can no longer explain them or categorize them according to the color of candy we are willing to share.
Last year, Merriam Webster added the word “frenemy” to the dictionary. The definition of a frenemy according to this entry is a person “who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy.”
Normally, the emergence of a word in any language comes from a need to be able to identify an object or phenomenon. Thus, we can assume that the fact that the word frenemy is now in the dictionary indicates that we have developed the need to find a word to identify those people who call themselves our friends but end up acting like our worst enemies.
Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?
The essence of a frenemy is a lack of clarity in the relationship; sometimes they seem to love you and care about you, and sometimes they act in a manner that contradicts this fact, and they end up hurting you with their actions or words ... it is like the same person turns into two different—almost completely opposite- individuals. Frenemies are inconsistent in their relationships...and because of this inconsistency, they are hard to spot.
The quality of our friendships, is going to affect the quality of our life
Good friendships/relationships = good life
Bad friendships/relationships = bad life
Why is this a simple equation? Well, because the people you allow to influence your thoughts, emotions and decisions, are going to affect the type of person you become and ultimately determine the kind of life you aspire to.
“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”—Prov. 13:20
In order for us to be able to differentiate friends from frenemies, we need to develop one very specific skill; CHARACTER DISCERNMENT; to be able to look and understand the inner qualities of a person reflected in the way this person treats others.
In choosing our friends, we exercise character discernment when
- Instead of looking at how popular this person is, or how big their network is, we look at whether this person treats others with respect and honesty.
- Instead of looking at personality ethics, we look at the character ethics of this person.
- Instead of looking at wealth and appearance, we look habits of this person, are they good or bad habits?
This idea about character discernment has been discussed very well in a book called Safe People. According to the book safe people are those people that you want to have in your life, as friends, or in romantic relationships, and unsafe people are those people that are not trustworthy in friendships or other relationships because they do not understand the value of your heart. One of the main messages is that we need to develop and exercise the skill of character discernment.
