Jealousy in Friendships

-- By TonyWang - 31 May 2024

The Problem

People can become jealous of their friends when good fortune befalls them. I fall short in this regard at times. Rather than resort to proverbs or philosophy to address why this happens and how to deal with it, I will delve into my own experiences — why I might feel this jealousy, and how I construct a version of friendship that can stop me from feeling this way. In doing so, I hope to provide a perspective that the reader can look into when faced with similar siatuations.

Sources of Jealousy

Ego

I suspect one explanation or contributing factor is my ego and pride. When I make a new friend, I will through countless shared experiences and interactions develop a relationship based on mutual respect. Gradually, I begin to view him or her as my peer — different in personality, yet an equal. However, when something extraordinarily wonderful befalls them, among the positive emotions I feel, jealousy creeps in, like a voice telling me that we are no longer am at the same level. Their good fortune has lifted them to a different stage in life, concomitant with new realities that I cannot partake in. In these moments, some recurring thoughts are that: “I no longer have what it takes to be their equal, and they are no longer my peer, but have rather evolved beyond my level.” This feeling that it is now in my friend’s interest to leave me behind in the dust while I have done nothing wrong to be abandoned by them threatens my ego and pride, as I now feel worse than someone who was previously my peer.

Fear

Another explanation and contributing factor is my fear of abandonment and insecurity — fear that my friend about whom I cared deeply, now with their newfound success, may decide that I am no longer able to keep up with their new life and are holding them back. That friend may decide to leave me for new friends who are better suited to his new status. This form of abandonment is out of my control — nothing I did costed me this friendship and resulted in this abandonment. This insecurity and fear may have led to me developing jealousy as a Defense mechanism — by becoming jealous of that friend in question, negative emotions will be borne, and gradually I will distance myself from said friend, thus shielding myself from the emotional pain that would result should the day come when they do decide to abandon me. In other words, jealousy is a way of cushioning my feelings as an insurance for when a friend with their newfound fortune decides to abandon our friendship .

My Coping Mechanism

To cope with these negative feelings of ego and insecurity, I have formulated a construction of friendship wherein friendship is like a social contract conditioned on each party’s care and interest in the well-being on the other party, a relationship I have labeled “True Friendship”. In this construction, being true friends means being personally invested in the other’s downfalls and good times, not out of selfish motivations to derive pleasure or benefit from the other person, but simply to the benefit of the other party. I thus define true friends as those people about whom you care almost as much as you care about yourself. I achieve this by viewing my “True Friends” as an extension of myself — their fortunes become my fortunes, their downfalls my downfalls. Effectively, we operate as a collective.

This is similar to a contract, where in order to enjoy the care and love of people within this collective of “True Friends”, one must pay the consideration of viewing people in this collective as an extension of himself. If something terrible befalls your hand, though you may not suffer to the same degree, yet you share in the pain. Vice versa, if something amazing befalls your arm, though you may not benefit in tantamount, yet you share in the joy. The reason I use this construction of friendship to cope is that by treating my friend’s fortunes and misfortunes as my own and making sure he does the same, I receive a promise not to be abandoned should their good fortune uplift them to a reality in which I am inadequate to partake in.

Now, one might ask, how can I enforce these promises? After all, there is no enforcement mechanism to this contract, and no cost to breaching the promise. My friend could very well choose to abandon me once they cross that bridge and throw away all promises they made prior to entering into contract.

Regarding that question, I have no clear answers, I have only a method of reassurance. I begin with the premise that people’s character and values do not fundamentally change short of some life-changing event. I then assess whether that person’s character is one that is capable of making a promise and keeping it in the absence of enforcement mechanisms or breaching costs. In the past, I have experienced friendships that have failed me in that regard, but I have rationalized and made sense of these failures as being a result of my faulty assessment of people’s character - ie, being fooled by their false personas rather than testing them in difficult situations. Presently, my assessment comprises of what I call “character-revealing events” to correctly assess each potential friend’s character, but these events do not occur frequently, the infrequency of which results in missed opportunities for true friendship. Timing, luck, and other conditions need to happen to create the conditions for true friendship, but what is clear is that commonality in character is a necessary condition.

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