Senior English and criminology and criminal justice major

We all have that one person we hate for no reason. They’ve never done anything to us; we don’t even know them that well. But they make us irrationally frustrated and angry.

They are our college frenemies.

We think they are better than us at something, and it drives us nuts. We think they’re prettier, smarter, more popular or even happier than we are. But here’s the thing — these people are neither our friends nor our enemies. They’re actually a lot like us.

What’s consistent about our relationships with our college frenemies is that they are very shallow. We barely know these people, and that’s what makes them so dangerous. The few moments a day or week or month we see them, all we see are their superiorities, and this makes us think they are perfect every other second of their lives. In reality, they have flaws in areas we likely supersede them in. But we just don’t think about that.

They’re not our enemies because they haven’t done anything to us. But less obviously, they aren’t that different from us. I see my most infuriating frenemies in my classes; I see their GPAs and I see their study habits, and they make me jealous. We aren’t so different, though. My frenemies and I are all very academically motivated and work toward good grades. The frenemies you think are more attractive than you probably enjoy working out as much as you do. The frenemies you think are more popular probably go to the same parties as you do and hang out like you.

I emphasize the word “think” because our shallow relationships with these frenemies cloud our judgment and make us judge ourselves too harshly. Take grades, for example. I might think the girl with the 3.9 is smarter overall than me and hate her for it, but in reality, I could be a much better writer than she is. The likelihood of my frenemy being smarter than I am in general is minute; therefore, me saying she is smarter than I am is 99.9 percent invalid. Most of these umbrella statements are overgeneralized and misguided, and you should avoid them if you’re looking to have mercy on your self-esteem.

You can do two things with your frenemies: keep hating them or have the best revenge. Hating them will only kill your confidence and self-esteem. College frenemies should be used as motivation to better yourself, and everyone knows living well is the best revenge.

Russians have a motivational proverb: Only idiots learn by making mistakes. This means a smart person learns from the mistakes of others and doesn’t make those mistakes in the first place. For this particular purpose, I’d like to amend this proverb to include that only idiots let the success of others make them jealous. Go to the gym more often; study just a bit longer; reach out to more people at the next party; let those frustrations turn into action.

Margaret Zelenski is a senior criminology and criminal justice and English major. She can be reached at mzelenskidbk@gmail.com.