You Again! Best Friendemies?

I am very interested in the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and lately I have been reading about people who are writing about Different Types of Friends/Friendships. As I am doing my homework or research on Friends I am discovering that people are also writing about Friendenmies (friends who are really your enemy). not sure about the correct spelling of the word. I have seen it spelled a couple of different ways.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2226839_spot-a-frenemy.html

In the thread Must See Movies & TV,
http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,7687.0.html
examples of Authentic Love are provided and NewWings mentioned one of my favorites, Fried Green Tomatoes. I believe that CZ has the Spirit of of Towanda!
http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,7312.msg25901.html#msg25901
What really bothered me is what some of the critics said about this movie. Basically that woman are incapable of this deep level of love for one another unless they are sexually attracted to each other. I do not believe this to be true. Sure our culture plays into women's insecurities and competitiveness, but many of us do not buy into this. I believe there are many women here at WoN who would make great friends. There is a new movie, You Again about what is popularly called Best Friendemies. It is disheartening to me that having or being a Frienemy is becoming so popular, especially among young girls. It is that Toxic Triangle that some girls find themselves in where they compete among themselves to be the Golden Friend of the Popular Girl in the group which results in the Less-Than or Less Preferred Friend and Least Preferred Friend Statuses. Even very young Pre-K girls do this. Two of them can play well together, but bring in a third or fourth and if there is a Mean Girl in the bunch, she takes this opportunity to exclude her targeted Scapegoat. I hate when this happens and what bothers me even more is that some teachers and parents view it as "a child's right to choose who she wants to play with and who she does not." I believe we have the right to choose who we want to be friends with and who we do not, but this exclusion is not about choice it is about the power to hurt others which is mean, hideous and wicked. Some argue that the Mean Girl has a Fear of Rejection so she is doing to others what she fears will be done to her, or maybe what has been done to her. Some people believe that the way to treat Mean Kids is to love them into kindness and they purposely place their own children in the line of fire. This is not my approach. My D and I talk about how a certain child is being mean today, how we don't have to play with him/her or any mean person, until they can be kind. Maybe tomorrow Little Sam or Sally will be kind to others, but today, s/he chooses to be mean so we will play w/our friends who are kind. Children who don't want to be mean, eventually stop when they receive this consistent consequence, however, there are some who just pick another group of kids to manipulate until the entire class no longer wants to play with them. My D has told me a certain child is mean everyday so I don't want to play with her anymore and I tell her that is a very good choice.

Some girls really enjoy being Mean Girls and the Movie that glorified this behavior has some people viewing this Nism as "normal childhood behavior". It may be common in our backwards world, but is definitely not normal or healthy. While watching a Movie depicting Mean Girls and how they treat others might be entertaining for some, this is definitely not realistic. As we all know, having an N-counter is not enjoyable and is very toxic. Some very young girls get addicted to the drama & chaos from toxic relationships.

On the flip side, I must say that the You Again movie trailer looks like the movie would offer a lot of laughs and be fun to watch. It is very important that we explain to our children exactly what we find funny and why and how certain N-behaviors are not funny at all. Perhaps this a great chance to open dialogue w/our children about Authentic Friends and how Mean Girls become Mean Women. How bullies don't grow in love only in age and don't get better, but instead much worse over time. We need to explain to our childeren how these N-counters drain a person's time and energy and it is best to invest our time, energy, love into Authentic Friends who can reciprocate love, appreciation, respect, trust, etc. How toxic people are over drawn because they keep requesting authentic love from us and give none in return which makes us feel emotionally bankrupt after an N-counter.

Has anyone seen this movie and what did you think?



Here is another interesting article,
http://www.ehow.com/how_4528252_tell-friends-frenemies.html

I guess symbolically speaking, if people could be identified by colors, an Authentic Friend would be white (or perhaps your favorite color), an enemy would be black (or your least favorite color [black happens to be one of my favs]), and a Frienemies would be a shade of grey. I never liked grey, not really sure why? I have no desire to have Grey Friends or Frienemies.