How I Learned To Let Go Of Frenemies And Be My Own Friend

Throughout my adult life, I’ve had some fairly difficult friendships with women, although I truly wish it weren’t this way. I always want to be friends with women, and of course, I have had successful friendships with several; however, female friendships can often be fraught with so many complications. Consequently, I’ve come up with a few conclusions.

I have previously written about misogynistic women and how they are so prevalent because our culture pits us against each other. We are taught to compete. We are taught to criticize each other. We are taught to break each other down. Some of us escape this, though, we are able to sort through all the garbage fed to us and treat each other like human beings. I will dare say that these women are not that common. This is the reason why the term “frenemy” is so ubiquitous.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been a recipient of a snarky, passive-aggressive, or just plain aggressive comments about my body, skin, hair, clothes, and even my ladyparts (yes, you read that right.) Because women are taught to be insecure, of course, many will take that insecurity out on you—  particularly if you are confident.

Obviously, it’s easy to see right through it. Since I have no desire to hurt people’s feelings because of my own inadequacies, I have been sincerely astounded every time I’ve been unfairly criticized (i.e. “Your skin looks gross. ” “Is that really what you’re wearing?” “I can’t believe he dated you when he was really in love with me”, etc. There are worst ones, but I will leave it at that).

The mistake I’ve made over the years is to tenaciously cling to these friendships. I really value relationships and try my best to cultivate them, so against my better judgement, I would forgive these kinds of transgressions and tried to focus on good qualities. As I get older, however, I realize that I’m tired of being treated this way. The world does enough to try to stomp on my spirit. Every day, the media tells me that I’m not thin enough, that I’m weird-looking, that I’m overall aesthetically deficient.

As a Latina, sometimes I’m told that I’m am an unintelligent whore. Everything around us tells us that we are lacking in this, that, or the other. If I fight against this every day, why  would I tolerate this from a friend?

It took me many years, but I’ve finally learned to just cut these kinds of people out of my life. I’ve worked really hard to be able to like myself despite our culture’s efforts to make women feel like garbage. And I’m proud that I’ve devoted my life to developing my intelligence and writing. I don’t have the desire nor the energy to be belittled for the sake of someone’s ego.