How competition can destroy friendship: 3 real stories

Some believe that the rivalry between friends not only does not interfere, but even helps in the development of personality. However, Lensky, who was killed in a duel by his friend Onegin, would argue with this.

Fortunately, the stories of our heroes did not end so tragically. They shared with us how they consciously or unconsciously competed with friends, how this confrontation ended and what this experience gave them.

“I thought I wouldn’t be friends with anyone else”

In my first year of theater, I had a best friend. Let's call her Sabina. We spent a lot of time together and were very close: we went to each other's sleepovers, shared secrets, laughed a lot and sat next to each other at full speed.

If it was necessary to perform in pairs, Sabina and I always worked together. She had much more experience: before entering, she was engaged in vocals, stage speech. Her father was a writer, and her friend was a director. In her freshman year, she was named the best actress in the group.

Therefore, I was very painfully perceived from her criticism. When we rehearsed a scene and she didn't like something in my acting, she spoke about it directly. It didn't sound like, “Listen, maybe you should try this? I think it will be better." No.

Sabina said: “You are doing badly. Fix it. This piece is the only way to play it." Of course, I trusted her and thought that it was all about me. Her remarks greatly demotivated me.

But I was in love with the theater and worked hard. It seems to me that actors, like all creative people, are divided into those who were born talented and those who became so. Sabina was one of the first, I, most likely, of the second. Initially, she was really cool to play. But every person needs to develop their skills.

At some point, the masters began to tell her: “Due to the fact that you are organic, it is interesting to watch you. You don't hurt your eyes with your existence on stage. But this is no longer enough for the third or fourth year. Your characters have no soul." It so happened that she first encountered criticism only two years after admission.

On the contrary, they began to praise me more often. I became one of the best actresses. I think after these remarks to her the rivalry began, but I did not realize this.

When you have your best friend in front of you, you just can’t imagine that he will sit you down or put spokes in wheels just to get a role.

At first, I noticed that she stopped pairing with me on the scenes. Instead, she offered to play together with other girls - those who were weaker. She was afraid that she might be overshadowed.

The theatrical environment itself is very competitive: there are few roles, actors a lot of. Everyone has to be for themselves. But I do not think that you need to go over the heads for the sake of success.

Sabina apparently had a different opinion. Once we were both put in the first roles. She played the main character in her youth, I - in adulthood. It doesn't seem to make her very happy.

With tricks, flattering the director and the team, deliberately dragging out rehearsals, she ensured that there was no time left to prepare the second part of the performance, and I lost the role.

Then I learned from a classmate that Sabina says behind her back about how badly I play and look. At first I didn't believe it. I asked her directly: “Why are you discussing me behind my back?”. Sabina was offended: “How can you trust her? years friendship mean nothing to you?" She turned the situation on its head so that I myself was to blame.

For a while, everything seemed to be going well. But then I was convinced that the classmate was still right. The performance was to take place that day. We all changed in the dressing room. I stood behind the screen so that I could not be seen. From there, I heard Sabina enter the room and start talking to the girls.

I already wanted to go out and say hello, as she said: “Again, this Adeline messes up on stage! How fucked up she is."

I had a shock. I silently walked out from behind the screen, looked at Sabina - there were no words - and left the dressing room. Cried in the toilet.

All this time, Sabina tried to suppress me, to lower my self-esteem, to turn others against me. And all because of what? Because I was afraid of competition.

After that, it became very difficult for me to trust people. For six months I did not communicate with anyone - I studied yoga and read books. At first I thought I would never be friends with anyone else.

But then I rethought the situation and realized that it was a good experience. Now I will not be so naive - especially in the theatrical environment, where everyone is ready to break for the role. But this knowledge should not affect relationships with people.

Now I think: “Yes, in 10 years a friend can betray you. You just have to be ready for it." Still, a person needs a person.

"Such a male friendship"

Misha and I have been friends since childhood. We met on the playground, and then went to the same class. I would not say that something was wrong in childhood. Of course, sometimes there were conflicts, but in general it was an ordinary friendshiplike all children.

The problems started at an older age. When we were 15, I started dating a girl. Let's call her Ksyusha. I thought everything was going great. But then Misha somehow unexpectedly appeared in our relationship, and the three of us often began to walk.

Once I invited Ksyusha to a pizzeria to celebrate two months of relationship, and she suddenly asked: “Will Misha be?” I then thought: “What did he forget on our anniversary?”

At that moment, we had already begun to move away from each other. She didn't reply to my messages for a long time. And I was worried about it.

Once we watched a movie together... More precisely, I watched, and she was stuck on the phone, corresponding with someone. When she went to the toilet, I - not proud of this act - got into her private messages and found a huge correspondence with Misha.

She wrote to him that we had moved away from each other and that I did not understand her - although she never made any claims to me. To which Misha replied something like: “Yes, it sucks. Well, don’t get mad at Kiryukha - he’s a little dumb-headed guy, you have to explain everything to him 10 times in order to understand. ” This upset me so much that I even forgot that I was on someone else's phone.

Ksyusha saw this, and we started a scandal - a real teenage drama. That day we parted ways. When I wrote to Misha: “We need to talk,” he seemed to be unaware of anything. And then he began to make excuses: “Yes, on the contrary, I defended you! Yes, it’s your own fault that you don’t notice something in a relationship. Yes, with girls it is necessary in a different way.

Then his explanations seemed more or less acceptable to me. And we eventually reconciled, converging on the fact that girls are strange.

Everything would be fine if, six months later, Misha had not started dating this Ksyusha. He said to me: “Bro, it so happened that I fell in love. You are no longer with her. Do you really care?" And although it was unpleasant for me from all this, I tried to calmly say in a boyish way: “Yes, fuck her already.”

This was probably the first situation that pointed to our competition with Misha. I didn't notice much then. For example, that in front of other people he could tease me, point out some of my shortcomings and thereby cause the laughter of those around me. Then it seemed to me that these were friendly sub *** ki.

A couple of years later I entered an institute in another city, Misha stayed here. But we both continued to correspond and went to visit each other.

Misha then favorably stood out against my background. His parents rented an apartment for him and bought a car. I went to a millionaire, where rent housing was exorbitantly expensive, and luxurious gifts were not even a question in my family.

I knew that Mishin's father was a wealthy man and they never had any problems with money in their family. Sometimes I thought that I would like to live the same way, but this did not cause me any strong envy.

However, our differences in financial solvency still played a role. In my second year, I started dating Marina. I told Misha about this, and he immediately “checked it out”, subscribed to her on social networks, and then met her live.

As soon as Marina came to the cafe where we were sitting, Misha began to make stupid jokes about me and tease me, supposedly wondering why she was still with me. He “tolerates me for a long time”, and in general “you won’t leave friends”, and she still has a chance to escape from my smelly scattered socks.

Then he suddenly declared: “When will you move in already? Ah, you live in a hostel… You haven’t saved up for an apartment yet.” He knew perfectly well that I had problems with money and that this topic was unpleasant for me, especially when a girl with whom I had just started dating was sitting next to me.

Now I would not tolerate this. But then I just swallowed the insult. He sat and pretended that we always joke like that and in general it is “such a male friendship”.

Marina and I met for a short time. broke up for indirect reasons, although later Misha somehow casually mentioned that he sometimes corresponded with her - "a normal girl." So I don’t know exactly what role he played in the collapse of these relations.

Perhaps he felt a sports interest, beating off the girls from me.

My friend, Masha, opened her eyes to this whole situation. Then, in my third year, I had little contact with Misha. But once he came to the city, and I introduced Masha to him.

Again the story began about what a useless life I have and how no one can stand me, except Misha. Surprisingly, her friend did not laugh at these stories, like Ksyusha, and did not even squeeze out a polite smile, like Marina.

Once she frowned at all and said: “That’s rude” in response to Mishin’s story about how he poured a cup of soup on my pants and I walked around the school with a wet yellow spot between my legs.

When Masha and I were left alone, she said: “It seems that this childhood friend of yours remained in childhood.” At first I didn't understand what it was. Masha explained: “I mean, he is a completely immature person who humiliates others in order to seem less ugly himself. He loves to win and hates when someone is better than him. And you're clearly better."

This conversation was probably one of the most important in my life. It felt like I had matured. That someone was able to extract those unpleasant sensations from me and describe them in words.

I realized that many of Misha's actions could hardly be called friendly. There was something else lurking here: perhaps envy or a desire to improve one's self-esteem. The competition was a consequence of Misha's internal problems.

We ended communication gradually. I just stopped taking the initiative and didn't write first. When I received messages from him, I answered in monosyllables. If he offered to meet, he referred to cases. There was no clear break in words. But after talking with Masha, I realized that we were no longer on the same path with our “childhood friend”.

"I'm sorry if you feel sad about my victory"

Varya and I began to be friends at the university. At first, I was amazed at how much we had in common: we both loved literature and wanted to become writers, we had a similar view of the world, we even had the same stories from the past! We quickly hit it off and developed a close friendship.

There were no problems at first. I thought I had finally found my best friend.

Then my friend opened a digital agency, he needed a few copywriters. He invited me to one of the positions. I thought that Varya would also be interested in working in a startup, and told about the vacancy. We were very happy when both passed!

In the depths of my soul, this situation frightened me: I was afraid to compete with Varya. My ego wouldn't have survived the blow to my self-esteem if I had been worse.

Partly because of this, I asked the director to transfer me to the position of designer. It seemed to me that this was the right decision: I left the competitive field, and I would not have to fight with her for emotional strokes.

In the long run, this turned out to be not the best solution. Although I was attracted to design, this activity seemed too boring to me. I knew that I did not want to work in this area all my life.

In the end I gone from the agency and thought about what I would like to do. I knew that I still wanted to write. Successfully turned up several projects, and I began to feel more confident in copywriting.

Varya later also left. And then, with burning eyes, she told me that she had a cool idea - to open an SMM agency together. I was delighted with her!

Together we began to recruit employees, look for clients, develop the company. And somehow it turned out by itself that I became responsible for design, and she for copywriting. At first, I didn’t think much about it, because there were a lot of administrative worries.

But then I felt a little deceived and stupid: right before my eyes, the position that I liked more was taken from under my nose!

At the same time, Varya realized that my passion for texts had not gone anywhere, so she often consulted with me and helped me stay involved in the work of copywriters. I even wrote posts for several projects myself.

However, the forces, as it seemed to me, are still unequal: according to the open division of duties, she still remained the main one in the texts. Therefore, I did not feel that I could somehow argue or compete with her in this matter.

Nevertheless, as Varya later told me, she still felt the tension between us - as if I was trying to hook her up or expected some kind of failure from her.

Once the customer spoke very unflatteringly about her work in front of everyone. As we left the meeting, she began to cry and said that she thought I was jubilant about it. Although it was not so at that time, her words were probably not without meaning.

Then the word "competition" for the first time sounded aloud.

We spoke frankly and agreed that there is competition, but it will not destroy our friendship. On the contrary: constant confrontation makes both of us better and stronger. Now I understand that it was an alarm bell, but at that moment I did not hear it.

A year later, we closed the agency. It would seem that now everyone can do what they want and competition can be avoided.

But still, she continued to poison our relationship. Even in small things: Varya could be upset that fewer compliments were given to her along with mine, I - that my joke was not as successful as hers. All in all, it couldn't go on forever.

Around the same time, both of us, independently of each other, decided to realize ourselves in literature. Enrolled in writing schools, began to submit their stories to magazines.

One day I realized that I was afraid to upset her by being praised on the course. But still she told about her successes, and she really wilted. We started talking about competition again.

At that moment, it seemed to me that I had already grown out of this infantile “who is better”. But sometimes I still caught myself thinking that I myself was afraid of Varya's success.

Perhaps that is why, although I did not realize what motivated my actions, I once kept silent about the fact that the writing school was holding a competition for free education. To participate in it, the organizers had to send a synopsis of their story, which I did.

They published the results two weeks later. And what was my joy when I found out that I had won! However, after a few seconds, my jubilation was replaced by anxiety. The lists of those who did not pass included the name and surname of Vari.

I didn't text her all day because I didn't know how to tell her that I had won. After all, this, most likely, would hit Varina self-esteem.

I felt like I was acting like a good friend when I wrote, “I'm sorry you didn't pass. I'm sorry if you feel sad about my victory."

I wanted to say, “I'm sorry I won. But I'm glad I won." A glorious friend and an achiever fought in me, ready to almost go over their heads.

Such a position only angered Varya, and we did not communicate for several weeks, until we finally decided to talk normally.

When I went to this meeting, I planned to say that I wanted to temporarily distance myself. Varya had similar thoughts. It was not an easy but very important dialogue. During it, we discussed not only competition, but also other things that spoiled our friendship. However, the problem of rivalry was one of the main ones.

Varya admitted that she no longer wants to compete, but at the same time she does not see a way to deal with this without breaking off relations. At least for a while. Three months, for example. It's been two years since then and we still don't talk.

This relationship helped me rethink my behavior: I realized that I often start to compete with people, worrying that I am worse than them. This is a strange defense mechanism that hinders rather than helps. Because of this, I began to be afraid to build friendships, but working with psychologist.

Now I try to keep track of whether competition appears in my relationships. If yes, then this is an important reason to think: “Why do I want to become better than this person?” And this is also an occasion to talk with him and strangle unhealthy rivalry in the bud.