Frenemy: The Friend Who Bullies

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to look into the slang term frenemy, what it meant for adolescent girls and their friendships. Therefore, this research had three key objectives. The first objective was to define the word frenemy and to determine how young women recognise one. The second objective was to find out what types of bullying young women have experienced from frenemies and what impact that had on them. The last objective was to find out how the young women responded to the bullying and what things supported or undermined attempts to deal with the frenemy. Seven individual interviews were held with young women who had had a frenemy. The results gave an insight into the complex nature of what and who a frenemy can be. This study has shown that any friend can become a frenemy and use indirectly aggressive behaviours to bully. As female adolescents have highly intimate friendships, frenemies can be particularly effective in causing pain when they were once a ‘best friend’. When a target seeks help, she is most likely to go to other friends first or seek advice but not intervention from parents. The attitudes of school personnel towards indirect aggression among girls have resulted in failed attempts to stop the bullying.