Why workplace frenemies are our most stressful colleagues

If frenemies, in general, have been understudied, then their role in workplace politics is even less well understood. This is a shame, since many job environments may be particularly ripe for the creation and maintenance of ambivalent relationships. 

Organisations often force us into interactions with people we wouldn’t choose to have in our social networks.

It is the sense of professional competition that injects negativity into the working relationship. You may find your colleague to be very likeable, for example, and you would happily go for a drink with them.

Yet you feel betrayed when they apply for the same promotion as you. It’s normal that people want to get ahead but also get along with their colleagues at the same time.

 A study questioned US retail employees about their colleagues. She found that the nature of the ambivalent relationships depended on people’s desires for closeness. The more people wanted to establish a connection with their frenemy, the more likely they were to both help and hinder their partner in their work. 

In other words, the positive intentions meant that every element of the relationship – good and bad – was more intense. “It makes the ambivalence more salient.

Your desire for closeness will amplify the ambivalent feelings.

And so, if you are starting to feel too stressed by the relationship, you might aim to become a bit more realistic in your expectations of what your frenemy will provide, without necessarily cutting them out of your life altogether.