How Can Authors Write Believable Frenemies In Novels?

High school friend groups are like long-running arcs in 'My Hero Academia'—alliances shift, rivalries flare, and characters who seem inseparable today can act like enemies tomorrow. I think frenemies form because adolescence is basically social chemistry under pressure: everyone is experimenting with identity, trying to claim status, and learning how to manage hurt feelings without very good tools. Add limited social resources (attention, gossip, shared spaces like classes or clubs), mixed signals, and the heavy weight of insecurity, and you've got a perfect storm where polite smiles and sharp comments coexist. A lot of it comes down to comparison and competition. Teens are constantly sizing up one another — who's cooler, who's dating whom, who got the lead in the play. That competitive energy doesn't always turn into outright enemies; sometimes it turns into a kind of performative closeness where someone is supportive in public but snide in private. I've seen entire friendship groups where people will back each other up in front of teachers but subtly undermine each other through offhand comments or social media. The anonymity and curated perfection of online posts amplify this: one photo, one offhand caption, and suddenly someone reads jealousy where none was intended. So what looks like friendliness on the surface is often fragile, contingent, and threaded with resentment. Emotional immaturity is another big factor. Teen brains are still developing the parts that regulate impulse and foresee long-term consequences, so reactions can be dramatic and exaggerated. A small slight can be stored up and then unleashed later in a passive-aggressive remark or exclusion. Add peer pressure—where loyalty to the group sometimes means tolerating subtle hostility—and you've got friendships that function more like alliances of convenience. People also fear being alone; staying connected to a group that occasionally stabs you in the back can feel safer than walking away and facing the unknown. That fear keeps frenemies in orbit long after the good parts of the relationship have gone. Navigating this mess taught me a lot. Setting clearer boundaries, noticing patterns rather than excusing every bad moment, and investing in people who show consistent care (not just performative affections) helped me escape the worst cycles. It also helped to reframe some of those relationships as transitional — people who play a role for a season in your life but aren't meant to be forever. Looking back, the chaotic, snarky, sometimes painful friendships of high school were a strange sort of training ground for adult relationships: they taught me how to spot manipulation, how to speak up, and how to choose my tribe more mindfully. I still think there's a weird bittersweet charm to it all; the drama makes great stories later, and the lessons stick with you in the best possible way.

Frenemies at work are like a slow, sticky web: they look harmless at first but snag momentum before you notice. I’ve dealt with colleagues who’re charming in group chats but subtly undercut plans in meetings, and that kind of behavior eats at productivity in ways that numbers don’t always show. It’s not just the time spent dealing with petty drama — it’s the mental energy you lose trying to predict whether the person next to you will support you or quietly redirect credit. That uncertainty raises stress, fragments focus, and turns simple decisions into mini-politics sessions. In practical terms, the fallout shows up everywhere. Meetings become theater: people hedge opinions, skip constructive disagreement, or hoard crucial information. Projects slow because nobody wants to hand off work to someone who might take it as an opportunity to one-up them. I’ve seen perfectly competent teams produce patchy outcomes because they were busy managing impressions instead of solving problems. The emotional toll is real, too — having to perform extra kindness or constantly document decisions adds invisible ‘work’ that saps stamina. That invisible labor often results in long-term consequences like burnout, lowered morale, and higher turnover, which of course wreck productivity more than a one-off conflict ever could. Not all effects are purely negative though; a little rivalry sometimes sharpens people up. The danger is when friendly competition morphs into strategic undermining or passive-aggression — then the team loses psychological safety and creativity dries up. From my experience, the best countermeasures are practical and interpersonal: set clear boundaries, keep objective records of tasks and decisions, and lean into transparent, task-focused communication. If someone’s playing politics, neutralize it with facts and shared goals. Build small alliances based on trust and shared outcomes, not personality, and make sure managers know the difference between healthy friction and sabotage. If the pattern becomes harassment or chronic obstruction, escalation with documented examples is necessary — a toxic frenemy can’t be wished away. I’ve watched teams recover when leadership named the issue and reset expectations about accountability and respect, and I’ve also seen great people leave because their extra emotional labor never got recognized. That mixed bag keeps me cautious but pragmatic: prioritize the work, protect your focus, and don’t let charming sabotage become a norm — it’ll slow you down faster than any technical bottleneck.

You can spot a frenemy in a romantic relationship by paying attention to the small, repeatable patterns that feel off even when everything looks fine on the surface. I’ve learned to notice things like backhanded compliments — the kind that sound supportive but leave you doubting yourself — and the classic flip between intense attention and sudden coldness. If someone praises you publicly but downplays or dismisses you privately, that inconsistency is a big red flag. Other signs that have stood out for me are passive-aggressive digs disguised as jokes, frequent comparisons to exes or others, and a weird need to compete with you rather than build with you. Social media behavior is another tell: subtle jabs in captions, vague-posting right after arguments, or flaunting affection only when an audience is watching often point to performative affection rather than genuine care. Beyond the surface drama, the emotional mechanics are what really gave me the creeps in past situations. Frenemies tend to test your boundaries deliberately — flirting with others to see how you react, making you feel guilty for setting limits, or insisting they’re ‘just joking’ when they cross a line. Gaslighting is sadly common: they twist facts so you doubt your memory or feelings, leaving you apologizing more than they do. I once watched a friend unravel in a relationship where their partner would love-bomb for a week and then vanish emotionally, blaming the friend for being ‘too needy’ when the friend called it out. That rollercoaster is exhausting. Another pattern I’ve seen is triangulation — bringing third parties into your fights, whether it’s listeners who are fed slanted versions of events or comments meant to pit you against mutual friends. That isolation is a control move dressed up as drama. When it comes to dealing with frenemies, my approach has been practical and slow: collect patterns, not one-off slips, and trust the trend. I try to name behaviors out loud, either in a calm conversation with the person or with a trusted friend, because saying it makes it harder for someone to gaslight me later. Boundaries are my favorite tool — clear, non-negotiable lines about what’s ok and what isn’t — and I’ve found them liberating rather than mean. If the behavior keeps happening, I start scaling back emotional investment and make a plan to distance myself. Sometimes therapy or couples’ counseling helps if both people genuinely want to change; other times, walking away is the healthiest move. Watching how relationships are written in media helps me too: I love the rivalry-turned-affection in 'Toradora!' and the strategic mind games in 'Kaguya-sama: Love is War' as contrasts — they show how tricky lines between teasing and toxicity can be. In the end, trusting a nagging gut feeling and protecting my peace has saved me from a lot of messy heartbreak, and it’s a habit I’m oddly proud of keeping.

Office dynamics can feel like a weird crossover between a tactical RPG and a soap opera, and frenemies are the NPCs who act friendly while quietly shifting the battleground. I've run into people who smile in meetings and then quietly reroute credit, or who offer to help and then use that access to steer decisions in ways that benefit them. That kind of double-edged friendliness screws with how visibility, reputation, and promotion decisions get made — because promotions aren’t just about results, they’re also about perceived reliability, cultural fit, and who the decision-makers trust when filling a role. Frenemies influence the flow of information more than most people realize. When someone pretends to champion your work but withholds context from others or frames your contribution as 'helpful but not decisive,' it changes what managers see. I've watched projects where one person's careful phrasing in status updates or meetings subtly minimized another person's role. That kind of behavior can create a narrative that someone is less ready for stretch assignments or leadership, even when their output is strong. On the flip side, a frenemy might amplify your mistakes to its allies while quietly taking credit for your work in private conversations. Those micro-moves matter because performance reviews and promotion committees often rely on anecdotes and reputation as much as hard metrics. Navigating this wasn't elegant at first — I had to learn to document, speak up, and build real allies. I started keeping concise project notes and sending short recap emails after key meetings; not because I wanted to be paranoid, but because a clear paper trail made it harder for someone's interpretive framing to stick. I also invested in building relationships across teams, so more people could vouch for my contributions. Another thing that helped was being vocal about outcomes: demos, shared dashboards, and publicizing wins in team channels shifted the frame from hearsay to evidence. Mentorship matters too. Having a sponsor who understands your trajectory and can advocate for you in private helps neutralize the whispers and the subtle nudges from frenemies. There are emotional costs, though. Frenemy dynamics are draining, and I found that sustainable strategies balance being professional with protecting your energy. I learned to accept that you can't control everyone’s motives, but you can control how much access you grant and how visible your work is. When it came time for promotions, those who combined measurable results with a wide, genuine network tended to do better than those who were either flashy but isolated or quietly excellent but invisible. Personally, I try to treat people with basic kindness but keep important decisions, documentation, and stakeholder conversations in the open — it keeps the political noise from derailing the actual work. Plus, it makes the workplace feel a lot less like a battlefield and more like a complicated team sport I actually enjoy playing.

It's wild how a frenemy can quietly steer an entire character's journey without anyone noticing until a big moment lands. I love when writers use that prickly mix of affection and rivalry because it creates tension that feels personal, not just plot-driven. A frenemy acts like a mirror and a pressure cooker at once: they reflect the protagonist's worst impulses, force choices that reveal deeper values, and keep stakes emotionally intimate. Take 'Killing Eve' — the dance between Eve and Villanelle isn't just cat-and-mouse crime drama, it's a relationship that reshapes both women. Villanelle’s reckless charm pushes Eve past her professional boundaries, and Eve’s moral center keeps Villanelle fascinatingly human. Watching them nudge each other toward compassion, cruelty, or obsession is watching two arcs bend against each other until they snap or meld. Frenemies do a ton of heavy lifting in character development because they can be loyal one episode and toxic the next. That unpredictability lets writers structure slow-burn changes. In 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', Faith functions as Buffy’s shadow self — seeing how Buffy might falter if she made darker choices. Those confrontations force Buffy to reckon with responsibility and guilt in ways a straight antagonist couldn't. Similarly, the rivalry between Deku and Bakugo in 'My Hero Academia' is a textbook frenemy engine: Bakugo’s abrasive competitiveness pushes Deku to work harder and define his own heroism, while Deku’s steady moral compass forces Bakugo to reassess pride and vulnerability. Frenemies are perfect for arcs about redemption or descent because they can both tempt and save the protagonist, often on alternating episodes, which keeps character trajectories believable and messy. On a craft level, frenemies give writers a flexible tool for pacing and tone. They can be a long-term catalyst — like the mentorship-turned-manipulation vibes in parts of 'Game of Thrones' where political intimacies change a character’s strategy — or a recurring friction point that supplies comic beats, as with the rivalrous banter in shows like 'The Office'. They’re also fantastic for subtext and chemistry when romance is implied but complicated; ambivalence is a great engine for fan engagement. A frenemy relationship also frequently serves as the emotional hinge in big moments: a betrayal lands harder because the betrayer was once an ally, and a redemption feels earned because the other character stayed in the orbit long enough to challenge them. What hooks me most is how personal a frenemy dynamic makes a story feel. It’s not just about plot mechanics — it’s about watching two people test the boundaries of who they are. When it’s done well, every sarcastic line, every half-helpful tip, every tense silence is charged with history and future possibility. Those layered interactions are why I keep rewatching shows and diving into character analyses; frenemies make characters feel alive and dangerously unpredictable, and that’s the sort of storytelling that sticks with me.