Frenemies

I love Ira Glass. He's the creator and host of "This American Life," a weekly radio program on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio, and a Showtime cable TV series (two seasons). The program has been on for years, and as Glass says each week, TAL has "a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme." It's really well done, and you can learn things from each episode, or reminisce about things that touch you. I typically download the podcast for my iPod on iTunes and either listen to it on an airplane, or more recently, on long car trips.

This week's episode was called "Frenemies." The summary from their website states that, "this week we bring you stories about friends. Or wait, enemies? How about both? Tales of estranged sisters, BFFs breaking up and making up and breaking up, and how reality stars walk the fine line between making friends and making a name for themselves." The show had Four Acts about people who were friends and have volatile relationships. Friends who really don't like each other. Friends who argue all of the time. Friends who really don't trust one another, or even like one another. Friends who often find it difficult to sever the relationship, which in reality, is the best thing to do. Friends who are enemies. Frenemies.

I've had some frenemies in my life. And I think, as I get older, my patience for people who ware thin on me, lessens. We used to know this couple, Jeff and Holly. We met them on a cruise, on our honeymoon. They were married the same day we were, and were ironically (or not) placed at our table for dinner each night. When we first met them, the immediate connection was that we shared a wedding day. The we found out that they lived a few towns over from ours. We hung out for several events on the cruise, even planned a day trip with them. We exchanged contact information, and pledged a lasting friendship.

Back home, the wives were good at scheduling time for us to get together. We'd go over to their house for dinner, hang out and chat; we got to know one another. We began to exchange holiday gifts with them, shared birthday celebrations, met each other's extended families. We started a tradition with them where we would go pumpkin picking during Halloween. We even pulled out our wedding cakes from our respective freezers on our 1st anniversary and shared it with one another. We began having children at the same time. Frederic was born first, then they had a son shortly thereafter. Then they got pregnant with their second, a girl, before us, but also at the same time. We were friends.

Funny thing, though, was I never really liked them. Scratch that. I never really liked her. She was very demanding; on Jeff, on her mother, on her father, on us. She nit picked at Jeff, berated him in front of people, didn't seem to trust him that much. He was a really nice guy, too. He'd do anything for her, for anyone, and never really complained. But, her personality was just something I could not overcome.

I think over time, Cyndi began feeling the same way. Here we were, relatively close, but we began feeling like the relationship was a chore. I suspected that they felt the same thing about us too. We continued to schedule time together, hang out, let the kids play with one another. They bought a big house further away, and when we had to go over there, I stopped looking forward to it.

Neither one of us, though, had enough courage to break up with the other. We had friends that did that with us in the past. Heather and Mark, very specifically. Kind of the same thing. We had a connection--work--but we really didn't share the same values. One day, they just stopped calling us. We'd call and leave messages, but they were left unreturned. There was no, "I want to break up with you" or "it's me not you" conversation. They just flat out ignored us. Cyndi and I always wondered why Heather and Mark dropped off the face of the earth. Even though it was best, we felt like we wanted, we needed, an explanation. But we never got one.

In retrospect, the way they ended the relationship may have been genius. In fact, we copied the technique. With Holly and Jeff. One day, Cyndi was over at their house, on a play date, and something happened. The house they built was a two story. Our house is a ranch. Frederic, less than three at the time, was upstairs. He was fascinated by being on a second floor. It was new to him. While up there, he wanted to see what would happen if he threw a doll down below. So he did. I wasn't there, but as it was relayed to me, Holly began yelling at him, chastising him for throwing things over the stairs. And when I write yell, I guess it was pretty brutal.

So much so, that Cyndi came home and said, "I'm done. We are no longer friends with Holly and Jeff." We pulled a Heather and Mark. We stopped taking their calls, we deleted their messages, we ignored their pleas for an explanation.

One good hand does not necessarily deserve another, but we decided to cease being Frenemies with them. It was just too much work. And maybe it's the values thing that I'm getting at here, I don't know. We realized that we did not share the same values with these people anymore. Maybe we didn't share them ever. We concluded that it is much more enjoyable to be friends with people we like. We concluded that we didn't really want to have Frenemies. We just didn't have a label for it. Now we do.

Thanks, Ira Glass. Again.