“He was looking at me too.” I’d mentioned to my friend that a man in a bar was checking me out and I instantly regretted it. I was 28 at the time, and nights out were rarer than they used to be, so I was hoping to avoid the competitiveness. After accidentally triggering it, and feeling embarrassed about making an offhand comment, I had to ask myself serious questions about this friendship.
There had been a group of four of us, and it had been this way for over a decade. The competitiveness spanned not just men, but jobs, attention, weight, clothes, money and everything else imaginable. My worry was that this would never end and continue well into our 40s – that I’d still have to deal with shady comments both in front of and behind my back.
It’s memories like these which came flooding back while watching long-time friends Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie in the new series of The White Lotus. It’s revealed that they are all now living in different states and are having a much-needed reunion on Thailand’s paradise island of Koh Samui – only none of them appear to be enjoying it. If the internet is to be believed, I’m not alone, as many fans have found their toxic friendship dynamic to be a painful watch.
As middle-aged friends, you can see that Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie have been in competition for a long time. They scrutinise every area of each other’s lives, and despite their faux concern about each other, nothing is off-limits. This includes relationships, jobs, physical appearance, fitness, biomarkers, and even their children. While competitiveness like this happens across all classes, it may be easier for those with money, explained Ryan Bennett-Clarke, a psychotherapist at the UK Council for Psychotherapy.
“This may be more noticeable in so-called middle-class relationships because of the greater means to acquire that which can appear enviable, for example – status, wealth, fitness, beauty, power, confidence, happiness,” he explained.
Their exchanges reminded me of another conversation with my competitive friendship group in my early twenties when I made an offhand comment about “running around a lot.” One of them seized upon it and proceeded to quiz me on all of the exercise I’d done in the past week. She was a fitness fanatic and she was worried that I’d done more than her. Only when she deemed that wasn’t the case did she stop questioning me.
While my friendship group didn’t last into my thirties – I’m now 38 – I’ve certainly imagined the conversations that might have taken place, especially when I became a mother. I was glad that I didn’t have to answer questions from them about my son’s birth or breastfeeding, as I’m sure parenthood would have opened up another arena for them to compete in. It was such a vulnerable time that I knew I couldn’t have handled it.
Our dynamic started while at school, which makes sense according to research on the subject. A Danish study found that there is a gender difference when it comes to competitiveness which starts in school. It discovered that girls were more likely to join in tournaments if they had competitive friends and they were twice as likely to be affected by this rivalry than the boys in their class.
Even though competitiveness starts young, a study in the Journal of Psychology and Aging found that it gets worse as we age, reaching a peak at the age of 50. This rise is partly attributed to increased confidence and motivation. It steadily drops when testosterone levels diminish in both men and women as they enter old age.
While their competitiveness is masked as worry or low-level gossip, these relationships can have a profound impact on our lives, even causing depression and anxiety.
I found it triggering when Laurie revealed her fat mass to be “below 25 per cent,” which shocked the other two women. “Is that right?” Jaclyn reacted in disbelief as hers was the same yet she appeared to believe that her body was thinner. It took me back to a time when I would see how many fingers I could place between my jeans and my stomach to make sure that I was “thin enough” to see my friends. Our dynamic made me reticent to discuss any problems I had as I knew they would be picked apart, criticised or dismissed.
This desire to be competitive in our friendships can go back as far as childhood. “If we are not sufficiently affirmed as children, and if we do not receive consistent love and nurturing, we can be left feeling empty and hungry for love and for what we perceive others to have,” explained Bennett-Clarke. These feelings can be exacerbated by social media as well as a “parasitic” desire to acquire what someone else has.
Kristin, 45, from York, has experienced this problem in two of her friendship groups, which “felt more like silent battlegrounds than supportive relationships.” She explained that it became “transactional,” as their conversations were more about winning than sharing or empathising with each other’s experiences. However, it wasn’t always that way as these were people she’d met in school, but the toxic dynamic emerged years later. Even now she doesn’t know the reason behind the change.
To resolve the situation, she tried downplaying her achievements to fit in with her group but it didn’t work. In the end, she had to prioritise the relationships “that felt respectful, not performative. The relief of stepping away from that exhausting cycle made me realise that real friendships thrive on celebration, not comparison.”
“‘Tall poppy syndrome’ can happen when people in your friendship circle don’t want you to be more successful than them, and this can result in social rejection and isolation from groups,” explained Esther Cole, a consultant clinical psychologist at Lifespan Psychology. Competitive people can also avoid having vulnerable conversations, making a relationship feel one-sided. She warned that these types of friends can collect information to stay ahead in the pecking order, or even sabotage your efforts to be successful or happy.
Now that I’m approaching 40, I wonder what would have happened if I had said something to my friends or if I could have saved our relationship somehow. Olivia*, 42, from London, was brought up in a middle-class family but her friends were richer than her which she felt was part of the problem. “The scheming that you see in The White Lotus is all I’ve ever known from my female friendships, if I’m honest, it clouded the way I see the world.”
While this sounds bleak, she has learnt to live with these relationships over time. “They’re not bad people and I’m confident enough that I can call them out; it helps that I’m ‘poorer’ than them so I can’t compete anyway,” she said.
Even though she has lost a couple of her more toxic friends, she has stayed in touch with many of those who she met in sixth form and university. “I genuinely don’t want to compete anymore like I did in my twenties,” she explained. Now Olivia chooses to go to parties and weekends away where she can spend time alone or with her less competitive friends, choosing to focus on the things she enjoys instead of potentially awkward situations.
It takes hard work to change a friendship dynamic because it requires competitive people to analyse and recognise their unconscious processes, explained Bennett-Clarke. It is only then that they can be challenged and worked through. While these feelings can be addressed in therapy for those who are competitive as well as those who are victimised by their actions, healthy boundaries should still be put into place.
“If you come away from your friendship group feeling diminished, inadequate, and uncelebrated, you may be in the presence of the ‘smiling assassin’ who masks their hatred behind excessive praise and superficial adoration,” he surmised.
When I look back on my friendship group, it’s hard to imagine what any of us were lacking, as while none of us was rich, we had our families, interests, education, ambitions, and importantly, each other. Therein lies the problem with competitiveness, as it is a mental block which not only ruins an individual’s happiness but also spoils precious time spent together.
Cole explains that one way to avoid becoming competitive is to consider our own achievements and where we can go from there. This could mean looking at what we did last month or last year and how we’ve evolved as a person in that time. “Ultimately, for true happiness, the only person we should commit to competing with is ourselves, whilst taking inspiration from others,” she concluded.
*Names have been changed
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