The Frienemy

Recently, my honors English class was having a discussion about friendship. We are currently reading A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It is a story of two young men in a prep school in New England in 1942. The narrator, Gene, tells the story of he and his friend, Phineas (Finny), and how their friendship goes through a series of ups and downs. In the story, Gene grows to love and hate Finny all at the same time. In class, we discussed how relevant this book is to high school students in 2008.

My students came up with some very interesting things. I asked, "Does anyone have a friend that, deep down inside, you actually hate?" I used hate, which is a strong word, hoping that my students would go on to explain that hate is the wrong word. Instead, most nodded their heads and completely and openly acknowledged the fact that they all have a friend such as the one that I described. "A frienemy?" one girl asked, "do you mean a frienemy?" I actually knew what the young lady was talking about, but I wanted to hear her definition so I played dumb and asked her to explain.

"A frienemy is a person who we are friends with, but actually keep around in order to get their approval or to be present for their eventually downfall." I was amazed at this incredibly well thought out definition. She and the rest of the class continued to explain that these people are important to us because they make us feel important. Apparently, if there in someone is the world we hate that much, it gives us a goal of what not to be.

The conversation continued and out of curiosity I asked, "Do any of you think you are a friend of someone that actually hates you." The majority of the class - boys and girls - said yes. "How does that make you feel?"

Another girl, usually very quiet, raised her hand quicker than anyone in the class and said, "It makes me feel important. If someone hates me that much, I must be very important to a decent amount of people." I didn't know if I was more impressed or scared with the logic.

Is this what high school students are going through? I often value my age in the classroom because I feel like I still remember what it was like to be a teenager. I can relate to my students on a certain level. I am only ten years older. Could I forget this quickly? Or is it simply that things really have changed that much? I don't remember having friends I hated. I felt life was too short to be with people I wasn't very fond of. It was for this reason that I had a small, close-knit group of friends who I loved and still keep in contact with. I didn't need to prove myself to anyone and, for this reason, I was pretty well-liked. What has changed that fourteen- and fifteen-year-old kids think that they need to be hated to be important?

Something needs to be done for these students to make them realize that what defines them will not be who hated them or who they hated. What will define the students of this generation will be what they achieve and how they achieve it. While I love that my students are relating to the novel, it scares me to think that this extreme case in the story seems to be the regular in 2008 high schools. As teachers, we need to teach more lessons about life. We have experienced it. We've made the mistakes and it is our duty to inform students that these "frienemies" will not help them get into college and grad school. They will not help them find work in a suffering economy. They will not help their credit score or get them the mortgage approval they will need in a short nine to ten years. This conversation, that started as a simple book discussion, really opened my eyes to what is going on inside the heads of my students. We need to pay more attention to what they are exposed to. Furthermore, we need to make our volume louder than the volume of the society that is telling them to "love thy frienemy!"