Does jealousy destroy friendships? | Teen Ink

Does jealousy destroy friendships?

March 21, 2012
By sg1234 SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
sg1234 SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Think about what you do before you do it"
"Always treat others the way you would like to be treated"
"I believe in second chances"
"People Change"
"Step into their shoes"


Do you think jealousy destroys friendships? Will someone lose their friend because they wish they had something that their friend had? Well, jealousy is a form of insecurity and can definitely destroy friendships. When two people are jealous of each other they become competitive with each other. Jealousy can also make someone feel insecure. If someone is jealous of their friend they might start to look at their friend as being stuck-up or arrogant.



To begin with jealousy can make someone competitive for example, if someone is jealous of their friend because he/she is a better basketball player than them, then that person is going to practice basketball a lot more and have a basketball game with their friend just to try and beat their friend. If that person still loses the basketball game it can make them even more jealous, frustrated, and competitive which would lead to destroying a friendship. Another example is if a girl is jealous of her friend because a guy that they both like has a crush on her friend instead of her. That can make the girl compete with her friend in order to get the guy to like her instead of her friend. Something like this can definitely destroy friendships because then both girls are going to fight over the same guy. Also a third example that proves that jealousy can make friends become competitive is if someone is jealous of their friend because their friend has higher grades than them. If someone is jealous of their friend because of that then that person is going to try to get higher grades than their friend and if they do they're most likely going to rub it in their friends face which can get their friend jealous and result in both of them competing to get the higher grade. These examples prove that jealousy can make someone competitive which can eventually destroy friendships.





Next, jealousy can make someone feel insecure. For example if a person is jealous of a friend because they think he/she is better looking than them they they can start to think that they're ugly and start to feel insecure about themselves as a result. A second example is if someone is jealous of their friend because their friend is taller than them. If someone is jealous of their friend because of this then that can make them feel insecure about their height. A third example would be if someone is jealous of their friend because their friend is more fortunate than them then that can make someone insecure about their financial status. So as you can see jealousy is a form of insecurity which can destroy friendships.




Jealousy can make someone look at their friend differently. If you want something that your friend has then you would be surprised of how quickly you would start to think your friend is acting different, conceited or stuck-up and feeling this way about a friend can jeopardize a friendship. To prove this I have three examples to back this up. Example # 1 would be say if someone is jealous of their friend because their friend has more expensive clothes than them then that person may start to think their friend thinks that they're better than others just because they wear designer clothing. Example # 2 would be if someone's friend moved from an apartment to a mansion and that person becomes jealous of their friend because they live in a mansion, then that person may start to think that their friend thinks that they're better just because they live in a mansion. When really that's probably not the case but because the friend is jealous he/she may feel that way. Example # 3 would be say if a girl named Amy has a friend named Sam who is known as the"nerd" or "outcast" in school. Sam eventually joins the cheerleading team and all of sudden becomes "popular". When Sam becomes popular Amy becomes jealous of Sam's popularity and as a result starts to think that Sam is acting different or not being herself anymore. Since Amy feels this way then that can destroy a friendship because how can someone be friends with someone who they think is acting "different" or not longer being themselves around you. These examples prove how jealousy can make someone look at their friend differently which can develop into destroying a friendship.




The definition of jealous is the feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages. Now let's look at the definition of a friend. A friend is a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations. So may I ask how can one have a bond of mutual affection towards someone who they envy as a person and/or their achievements and advantages? See that's not possible. Mutual affection means to have sympathy of each person for the other and sympathy means to have feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. So, how can someone envy another person and/or their achievements and advantages while still feeling sorry for that persons misfortune? See it does not make any sense because if someone is jealous of their friend then deep down they're going to want to see their friend fail at something and when they do witness that then they're not going to feel sorrow or pity for them because that's what they wanted the whole time. They wanted to be better than their friend at something and they wanted their friend to fail at something. For someone to envy another person and/or their achievements and advantages and not feel sorrow or pity for their misfortune then to be called a "friend" is an inaccurate label because these feelings towards someone else does not fit the definition of a friend and what a friendship should be. If someone has these feelings towards someone else then their is no way that their friendship can last. In fact that friendship will eventually destroy.



All in all jealousy absolutely destroys friendships because a bond between two people can't last if one person or both people are having envious feelings towards each other. Whether it's in days,months, or years that friendship will get destroyed because those feelings that the person has towards their friend will come out one way or the other. Plus if you're willing to not have sympathy towards your friend then how can that relationship last? A part of friendship is caring about the person and if you don't even have that then that friendship is going to go down the drain. Furthermore, this proves that jealousy indeed destroys friendships.


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on Aug. 7 2019 at 11:47 am
elizabethkattey, White Plains, New York
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