Have you ever had a friend who always criticised your or your partner, never gave compliments when you wore a new outfit or made you feel insecure about yourself.

These friends are known as ‘frenemies’ chomas. A “frenemy” is described as ‘an enemy disguised as a friend’ and here’s how to spot if you have a ‘frenemy’ on your hands.

• Never happy for you

A ‘frenemy’ is someone would hardly be happy for you when you achieve something positive. Say you’ve received the highest mark in your maths class and you want to celebrate this with your friend but they don’t seem very happy for you. A ‘frenemy’ might be the type of person who won’t celebrate with you when things are going well and instead prefer being around you when things are not going well. This is because she might be someone who prefers seeing you constantly down.

• Mean to you

Friendship is about loving your friend enough to be honest with them in order to help and support them. Your friend being mean to you and leaving you feeling worse than you were before is not really a friend. Friendship is about communication and a friend who cares for you will speak to you in a friendly way and not be mean towards you. 

• Always competing with you

Competition is not always bad if you and your friend challenge and encourage each other to do the best that you can do.,. But if someone competes with you simply to make you look and feel bad about yourself, they’re probably not worth your friendship. Remember that part of being in a friendship is being able to empower each other to do well.

• Makes you feel used

In any friendship, being able to give and receive is important. When you’re in a friendship with someone you also need to feel like you’re getting something positive out of it and not feel like you’re the only one contributing to it. If it feels like your friend is always the one asking you for stuff, expecting you to do things for them that they would never do for you or making you feel guilty if you are unable to do things for them, then they could have their own agenda in the friendship. Unfortunately, there are instances where someone will become your friend only because they want from something from you. This is not what friendship is about. You should feel like your friend is there for you because they care and not because they need stuff from you.   

Supportive, positive friendships are an important part of your journey because they help you develop strong bonds. A supportive friendship is one where friends make time for each other, have each other’s backs, celebrate each other’s success and know how to be there for each other when things are not going well. They help you learn vital social and emotional skills, like being considerate to people’s feelings and thoughts and also teach you to see yourself in a positive light. Yes, we need to recognise when a ‘frenemy’ is close by and if you feel she’s too toxic to keep around, then end the friendship. But before you do, speak to her first and confront these issues because she might be struggling to understand how to be a friend to you – no two people are the same. Who knows? You might change her from being a ‘frenemy’ to a true choma!

What do you think about ‘frenemies’ chomas? Do you think it’s just an idea made up by society to prevent women and girls from supporting one another? Share your story chomas.