am i not a “girls’ girl” if I’m jealous of my best friend?

dear mixed feelings,

It pains me to admit (even anonymously) that i am sometimes so jealous of my best friend. If we aren't achieving — in whatever, relationships, work, school, looks — at the same time, I feel terrible about myself and can't help but compare myself to her, sometimes wondering if she will become so successful and leave me behind. it's weird because I don't do this with any of my other female friends and it makes me feel like I'm not a girls' girl because this is my bestest friend I'm talking about. am i not a girls' girl? how do i become one? — unstablegirl

Eliza Dumais (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor covering food, wine, and sex (hedonism, essentially). Read her work in Vogue, Vice, Food & Wine, Refinery29, Condé Nast Traveler, Cosmopolitan, TASTE, & more.

Dear Unstablegirl,

It has been brought to my attention that the title of “girl” has an expiration date — and I am far too old to resist inhabiting the two syllables that make up “woman.” Then again, girlhood — as I’ve lived it, at least — has no logical end. There is no tapering off, no pivot towards some uppercase Adulthood whereby you’re rinsed free of your girl-residue. Which is to say, the label continues to apply simply because it’s true — both of myself, and of the girl-women in my orbit (two words with not one letter in common: girl; woman).

I’ll admit, however: the most marvelous ingredient in female friendships can also be the most onerous: What you might call “like terms.” There is an ever-present inclination towards comparison when you’re working with the same raw material. Forget standards of beauty, academic success, publishing pedigrees — in my 29 years on this earth, I don’t believe I’ve ever managed to occupy space next to another woman/girl/female without assessing the parallels. Her nose, her hair, her skin, her weight. Her shoes, her book, her partner. Often, in my head, these are filed as compliments — or, at the very least, they masquerade as admiration in lieu of envy: what perfect posture she has. What an elegant laugh. Nonetheless, these are sentiments so often driven by the eternal compulsion to juxtapose.

Of course, jealousy in any context is an insidious thing. It’s a sentiment with teeth — and it has the biting power to gnash through marriages, friendships, businesses, nations. At the same time, it is deeply human. And I have not once encountered an individual immune to the thing. In fact, in your case, I would be so bold as to assume that this friend of yours has felt pangs of jealousy towards you.

call jealousy by a new name

I’d advise you to pride yourself on having selected a companion who still astounds you. It is a lucky thing, is it not, to furnish your world with the sorts of people you laud for their drive, their success, their wit, their community. Jealousy stings, but at its origins, it’s built from awe (the closest thing we have to practical magic, in my humble opinion). When you feel that envious tug somewhere in your gut, do your best to give it a new name. Call it reverence, even. Separate it from your own misgivings about what you are and are not achieving. Both of these things can be true at once — the awe, and the self-flagellation. We need not give them the same title.

For Barbie Atkinson, a counselor who offers friendship therapy services in Houston, Texas, embracing jealousy might even be a worthwhile practice. “What makes friendship particularly complex is that, unlike romantic relationships, we have fewer cultural scripts for navigating our emotions therein,” she says. “The goal [with friendship counseling] isn't to eliminate jealousy — it's to understand its message and to use it as a portal to deeper self-awareness and more secure connections.”

My own best friend — a label, much like “girl,” that I refuse to grow out of — has taught me a thing or two about envy. We met, tandem English majors, in a non-fiction course. We sat side by side, through countless writing workshops and dinner parties; read one another’s essays out loud over paper cups filled with budget wine in our campus library; graduated together armed with last names that begin with the same letter.

We were both writers. Are both writers. Publish work in the same slew of magazines. Live in the same city, the same neighborhood. Share a shoe size and countless friends. We are, for all intents and purposes, prime candidates for jealousy. Our lives are laid out in parallel, surgically ordained for competition. She is both the best person I know, and the person for whom I can most readily generate covetous resentment.

We have, however, come up with a solution — and a relatively simple one, at that: We speak it out loud. You see, if I had a penny for each time I’d said, fuck, that’s amazing, I am seething with jealousy, in response to some enviable declaration of her achievement, I would have a lot of pennies. She might have even more pennies. We might have the same number of pennies, and still feel some steely desire to possess the other person’s pennies, regardless of their immutable value. My envy — spurred by, say, my friend’s latest Vogue byline, the apartment she shares with her partner, her immaculate French — does not dissipate when I declare it. But, rather than wedge itself between us, it operates as one more vehicle for open rapport. I won’t deny the discomfort, but it never festers — never calcifies into resentment. Instead, we share in it. And frankly, in most expressions — most healthy, discursive ones — jealousy is a compliment. What a waste, then, not to wield it as such.

“We must start having these conversations more openly, more honestly, and with more curiosity about what they reveal about our relational intelligence,” Atkinson advises. “After all, isn't it beautiful that we can care so deeply about our friendships that they stir up such profound emotions? This isn’t something to shy away from – it's something to lean into, with awareness and grace.”

your jealousy contains multitudes

Envy and admiration are twin forces in our relationship, this friend of mine typed in an email when I explained that I could not, in good faith, write this particular essay, unless she wrote it, too. I feel jealous that Eliza gets to write this column.

But just writing that sentence, knowing she will read it, saps most (not all, mind you) of the sting out of it; allows me to focus instead on the grace of her insisting I add my own voice here, too. You know, the first time Eliza told me she felt jealous of me was like inhaling helium. A sort of head high that made me feel so much less alone, and so deeply flattered that I was possibly worthy of HER jealousy.

For context, this friend and I have debated, on several occasions, which of us would likely deliver a better eulogy at the other’s funeral — and thus, who ought to die first. The catch is: Whoever wins the eulogy-off has to go on living without the other one — a fate so far beyond my own comprehension, it feels damning to type. After all, this is a woman I could speak to for three days straight without breathing. Without running out of things to say. This is also a woman with whom I’ve learned to fight. To bicker, yell, apologize. To forgive with weight. To forgive in a fashion that equates to proper absolution — a divine, rare practice.

If I'm being honest, we feel jealous of one another in small, bite-sized ways most days — but it is among the more motivating forces in my life. My own custom gasoline. I’ve trained myself to run on that particular brand of jet fuel because the friendship, itself, is worth it. And in certain ways, you might call jealousy a blunt affirmation of that fact, rather than the opposite.

In any case, the crazy, obvious truth here is that friendships are not, by nature, monogamous. Your friend’s new friendship, new partner, or new dress does not negate or dilute the bone-deep fervor of your rapport. “This kind of jealousy is fascinating because it speaks to our most primitive attachment needs: the desire to be special, to be chosen, to be irreplaceable,” Atkinson explains. “But here's what's crucial to understand: your jealousy is not about the other friend — it's about your own attachment story. When did we first learn that love was scarce? When did we internalize that closeness with one person meant distance from another?”

In the same fashion, your friend’s accomplishments neither nullify nor underscore your own feats. When did we internalize the notion that success for one person means failure for another? Our qualms regarding how we measure up against the impossible metric of other people will always have more insidious roots than the coveting of our neighbors’ successes. I, myself, had to learn that I could write — really write — with enough grace, nuance, and rhythm to add up to something you might, on a good day, call talent, in order to stop assessing my own work in accordance with the glossy bylines mounting for my peers. More often than not, I have to re-learn that lesson every day. With frequency, I fail.

My point is this: Your own self-proclaimed instability has little to do with the structural integrity, the concrete sturdiness, maintained by your friend. Work on your own scaffolding, salute her for her form, thank her for reminding you what craft looks like.

Eliza is my biggest champion and my most intimidating competitor. And speaking my jealousy out loud taught me how to defang my envy. To soothe it into appreciation, my friend wrote, in her email.

Defang is a perfect word, I typed in response. I wish I’d come up with it first.

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