Frenemy

Today's writing assignment from the other blog I contribute to was a discussion about the word "Frenemy", a word with which I was unfamiliar before today, but which resounds mightily once defined.

A frenemy is defined thusly:

Frienemy (FREN.uh.mee) n. An enemy who acts like a friend; a fair-weather or untrustworthy friend. Also: frenemy.

After befriending more than a few of the denizens of WWET over the years, I had become intimitely educated on the definition of a frenemy and needed only a word to apply to it.

So before I actually took keyboard in hand this morning, I drank my coffee, read the NY Times and the Washington Post, and pondered perfidy. What drives people to insinutate themselves into the lives of strangers and use that relationship as the springboard to mount their highwire act of melodrama? Who would prefer the emotional danger of betraying a friendship to the safety of standing solidly on the ground with a trusted friend? And can there be any dismount from that tightrope except a fall?

Remember the parable about the scorpion and the frog?

The frog gives the scorpion a ride across the river on it's back, trusting that their mutually assured destruction will keep the scorpion from stinging him. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. As they're sinking into the water, the frog says, "Why did you do that? Now we'll both die!"

And the scorpion says, "I cannot help myself. That is my nature."

I think that's the nature of people who eventually show themselves to be "frenemies." Although they may desire to have friends and community, they can't help sabotaging those relationships. It is their nature.