I believe the word you are looking for is "envious."
19
And then there are those who are friends only with themselves and we hear a lot from them on social media too. Prophets, autocrats, and the extremely lonely impart their truths as urgent monologues,
6
Thank you for a very lovely, thoughtful essay. So impressed am I with your writing, I just ordered your book.
12
I have a best friend with whom I speak everyday. Her husband once asked what we could possibly have to talk about everyday? I answered, “You know how the moon always revolves around the earth? Well, how do you think that happens? You can thank us!”
23
With Lila as your friend, who needs enemies!
4
Yes.
The title doesn't match the article, and not to be too cynical, I think many of us are envious of close friendships about which we feel ourselves to be a "second tier friend." Only with great maturity and perhaps age do we accept that being a less-important friend is still better than not being included at all.
50
Never envy virtual friendships. The real work and rewards of friendship involve human intimacy. Friends care for each other's children, are there for friends' milestones from graduations to family members' funerals, sit across from each other at kitchen tables, cook for each other, hand each other tissues to cry into, sit beside each other's sick beds, take each other into their homes when necessary, and, hate it though we do, help each other move. No one can convince me social media relationships can come close to this.
44
I am surprised that no one here has mentioned being envious or jealous of the work spouses you might see in your office.
Cubicle dwelling can be quite lonesome and decidedly toxic if no one has your back.
30
My best friend and I say that we share a brain, I’m one half, she’s the other. We laugh out loud, we can look across a table and know what the other is thinking.
And we don’t always see each other. We talk a lot on the phone and try our best to have a lunch 2-3 times a month and it is one of the most comforting things in my life. We have always been able to call one another with a juicy bit, or a need of support or just to “catch up”.
And I have three another best friends who I don’t have that easy laugh with but we support and love each other and would literally do anything for the other. And we have been tested a lot over the years.
There is always that one that clicks, sort of like your spouse, but I feel like in any friendship you get what you give.
23
From reading the comments and Dear Abby I understand this friendship problem to be a girl thing.
2
@Rich Murphy
That could be the reason for my gut answer to the question: Could the classic tale “Lord of The Flies” have worked with all girls instead of all boys?
I feel, at a primitive level, no. Take hundreds of thousands of years of testosterone; procreation, competition, hunting, war, survival.
We may be equal but we are not the same.
Gatherers are better friends then hunters.
17
It's enlightening to read this in conjunction with the recent NYT article on how to end a friendship. Numerous posts from males there.
5
not to sound like a skeleton
at the wedding,but friends,
true friends that is, can be
as heartbreaking as they
can be uplifting. alliances
shift all the time,people
change and,especially if
we are the more decent
ones in the relationship,
we can be scarred for life.
I prefer acquaintances who
don't get too close but can
still be good company. that
way,no one gets hurt.
29
@Frank
I understand the impulse to avoid pain, Frank. I just don't think that works (for me). Friendships presume risk. I'd much rather risk and get hurt than not have the pleasure (and passion) of good and life sustaining friendship. That's my choice, I realize. And for that reason, I accept the good with the bad.
16
@Frank. That is sad.
3
@Frank I totally agree.
3
Friends are the family you wish you had.
64
Friendships can often surprise you or disappoint you. These days I am dealing with two significant medical issues. I have been amazed at who has offered support and who hasn't. My high school friends from fifty years ago are 100% on board as are some of my present day friends.
Others say, let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Then, they disappear unless I text them an update on my condition. Then they write back how sorry they are to hear what's going on. I have learned a lot about friendships during this time in my life.
48
@BSR I'm really sorry, it's painful to find out that a friendship wasn't as deep as you'd hoped. Be well.
10
@BSR
It is hard not to get too down on your friends but people deal with illness and death in very different ways.
Sometimes when you know someone as a youth, they always see you as young so that feeling that this person I know as a vibrant 18 year old is going to recover is strong and not threatening to their own mortality.
But when you meet someone in adulthood, and they get sick, it’s hard for some people not to have the thought “oh, my gosh, that could happen to me”. And that’s a scary thing for a lot of people. Be well.
14
My best friend just turned 80; she's ten years older than I am, but we've shared an effortless, intimate, and deeply committed friendship for 45 years. She is a charming, energetic and generous woman, a terrific, listener with a great, bawdy sense of humor, a non-judgmental attitude and a relish for new experiences.
We've been there for each other through lovers, kids, divorces, cancer, suicidal thinking and even a serious attempt. We've exchanged money --- respectable amounts --- as both gifts and loans during life's vicissitudes. I'm doing well financially these days but I have been so broke she had to send me food. I make sure she has enough money to be comfortable now.
I know she has close relationships with others too --- women from her childhood and college, her church, and co-workers. I would never think of being jealous of her other friendships; she is not "mine alone" and I stake no claim on being her best friend. I've never asked her if I am "number one" and wouldn't. Others enjoy her friendship in their own unique ways. She keeps up a lively online and written correspondence. Why would I be jealous of others in their friendship? I'm grateful that I've known her all these years, and she's more precious to me as she ages. Fortunately she's in good health now, as am I, but I know that she will be there for me as the years pass, as I will for her.
84
I’ve had three truly close friendships in my lifetime and only one of those people remains a friend, though now at a distance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I do have two close confidantes now, but I know that neither considers me their best friend. Sometimes this makes me feel really lonely. The thing about my earlier friendships was that they felt, at the time, like unconditional acceptance. I long for that unconditional acceptance. At my current age, new, close friendships are hard to come by.
96
Have I ever been jealous of a friendship?
No.
Except... yes.
In 2005 (or so), I had a best friend. We chatted every day, for long hours while we both worked as I worked as a freelance writer and she banged away trying to become a novelist. Exchanging confidences. Discussing work, our aspirations, our kids, our marriages, our troubles, our childhoods, our past trauma, which she had told almost no one else ever. I knew everything about her that it was possible to know. The rub? We lived 2000 miles apart and had never met in real life.
Then one day she said something that indicated to me that she was "best friends" with another writer, someone she knew VERY slightly, but had met in real life at a writer's convention over the course of two days. This writer was a minor celebrity. I knew they were, at best *acquaintances.* I said, "but you barely know her." She said, "But of course she and I are closer, we've MET. You and I have never met."
We were never friends again.
I wasn't jealous of her friendship, I just realized she had no flipping CLUE what friendship WAS. There are people you can truly be friends with, and be parted from for 30 years, and meet again as if you had never spent a moment away. There are people you have never met, and you are closer than your family. There are people you will never be close to.
No one will.
31
I hope you share this essay with the two friends at the cafe. They'd likely get a kick out of it.
37
I have. My friendship with a man in Houston reminds me a lot of Elena and Lila. However, both of us were in competition with each other. Somehow, we are still friends.
2
Beautiful piece. There is something special about "friendships." With no familial bonds, nor even a sense of dutiful partnership that often comes with a mate, there is an aspect to friendships that makes them more "genuine." Indeed, the commitment seems more genuine because there doesn't have to be one.
58
Virtual social media friends (Twitter) are real friends. I have hosted one from Europe for three weeks, and one I chatted with or wrote to daily for four years and exchanged gifts via the mail until politics broke our ties. People are on social media to connect with one another and for some, it is infinitely rewarding. Yes, being around friendships is wonderful and can invoke envy but better to just listen in.
5
@Bea Dillon--How sad that politics severed your friendship of four years. My best friend and I have an unspoken agreement: no political talk. I'm pretty sure we would agree, if it came up, but it's best not to know. We are marvelous friends of 25 years without knowing what side we're each on.
It used to be that politics and religion were never to be discussed. A lot of problems could be reduced if we adhered to that idea now.
7
The fact that people have an easy rapport on Twitter means they have an easy rapport on Twitter. Not that they're actually friends in real life.
21
It’s old hat to distinguish the value of friendships made outside digital realms as being more meaningful than those made in them. And there’s more crossover between the two than ever before, I find.
18
Very true. Alot of phoniness occurs online.
3
I enjoyed the literary references and the myths in this amusing article about friendship, but to answer the question, no. I have never been jealous of a friendship, not once, not even close.
11