Hi Nycartist

Quite often people misattribute being friendly for being flirty. It’s not uncommon for people in happy relationships to be flirty as a joke either as they feel secure in their relationships they don’t see it as true flirting where there would be a sexual interest.

I don’t think that your friend calling you flirty is a bad thing. Has she said anything else judgemental recently? You mentioned that there used to be issues between you both, could it be that you are worrying about those issues cropping up between you again?

Are you assuming that your friend isn’t being supportive? Or did she say something to suggest otherwise?

My husband is flirty without realizing it. Sometimes my sister and I tease him lightly about it and we all laugh together. Sometimes these comments are banter and jokes as opposed to serious?

I definitely think it’s possible to have relationships which aren’t judgemental and are loving and supportive. The trick is meeting kind people with good communication skills.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Dear nycartist:

You are welcome and thank you for popping on here from time to time, good to read from you anytime. I am as well as I was on the first day I replied to you, March 9, 2019. It was a Saturday (I just checked).

“Overall I feel good in my skin. I always compliment her when we meet up, tell her that her outfit is great, or her hair looks nice, etc…  I give my compliments genuinely“- you are a genuine friend to her.

“She also makes little remarks about my appearance… comments about my hair saying it looks so crazy and unbrushed… my hips are so narrow and hers are definitely wider… we both have ‘unique faces that not every man would appreciate’…  I realize there are some insecurities on her part– she is indeed a frenemy, just as you stated in the title of your thread, inside quotation marks. One of her comments, paraphrased: you have an unattractive face. But the criticism  is hidden (not really) under we, as if her saying that she too has an unattractive face, neutralizes her saying that you do.

As far as her comments about your hair looking so crazy and unbrushed and your hips being narrow. By themselves, maybe she pointed to these as positives because she likes crazy and unbrushed hair, as well as narrow hips. But you probably know that she doesn’t because of her comments about other people’s hair and hips.

“… many very minor snarks, and it all cumulates in my mind, and sometimes I do get rubbed the wrong way and have a bit of a reaction. Then she tells me I am overly sensitive, because the individual thing I am reacting to is minor, but it’s been built up by many little remarks“- sometimes following her criticisms, you react, and her response: to criticize you further, not for your physical appearance this time, but for your personality (overly sensitive).

Why is she doing this, I ask myself: to unload/ express her anger, her aggression, bit by bit, a little here, a little there. It makes me think of a dog growling instead of barking; sometimes you react and say: you are growling at me! And she responds: you are oversensitive, I didn’t bark at you!

This is making me think about my first ever reply to you back on 3/9/2019. It was about another aggressor in your life, the barking kind. I wrote to you back then: “When a big bad wolf huffs and puffs and threatens to blow your house down… you don’t open the door to the wolf. You don’t try to talk sense to the wolf. You don’t wait for his apology”.

Well, she is not a big bad wolf threatening to blow your house down. She is.. only chipping away at it.

“Anita, have you ever read ‘The Four Agreements’? I am going back to it, because it has great tips about being impeccable with your word…  I feel like I can maybe apply this to my situation with my friend…  My question to myself is, do I want to stay close to someone who seems to see me as a competitor, and inferior to her?“- is the price you have to pay for the friendship part of her frenemy: to accept her .. little aggressions..?

I wonder if The Four Agreements has the answer (quotes): “If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you. If that person doesn’t walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her. Walking away may hurt for a while, but your heart will eventually heal.“,

“I will no longer allow anyone to manipulate my mind and control my life in the name of love.”,

Here’s a quote that’s almost meant for you personally, nyc-artist: “Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.“- ethical anger (non-abusive anger) is part of us humans being beautiful (I am learning this these very days, for the first time in my life). Abusive anger is ugly. Anger that points to another as inferior for their physical looks (skin color, facial features, height, weight, body shape, hair color and texture, etc.) is abusive and ugly.

“I have learned over the years what is useful to share and what isn’t. The world is so ugly, I try to share the positive, because there’s enough ugly to go around…(only speaking with integrity and not speaking ill of others or of ourselves), and not taking things personally“- not speaking ill of others or of ourselves. I’ll do my best to keep this in mind, thank you, nycartist!

anita