Fighting Friends

I don’t make enemies—I create super fans.
The people we think of as adversaries often end up teaching us the most about ourselves. Which makes the line between foe and friend thinner than we might recognize.

I used to believe life was about finding antagonists, drawing lines, and winning battles. Like a lot of people, I learned early to create enemies outside myself. It was a convenient way to avoid looking at what was wrong within. But eventually, almost without resistance, I let that behavior go. Yay, maturity.

Here’s the real question at the heart of every relationship: do your interactions with someone make your life better, or do they drain you? Is it them, or is it me?

Every relationship is a mirror. It reflects what I’m seeking, what I desire, and—more often than I’d like to admit—what I’m unwilling to recognize in myself. Carl Jung called this the “shadow”—the part of us we’d rather keep hidden, but which shows up anyway, projected onto others. The flaws, impulses, and traits we fight in others are usually the ones we’re fighting in ourselves.

“It’s not you, it’s me” is the ultimate relationship cliché, but it’s also true. We hate admitting it because it means we have to stop trying to get the world to change for us and start working on changing ourselves. The only way to fix a relationship is to fix yourself. The only way to live in the world you want is to address the reflection of your true nature.

I actually love confrontation. I feel it in my gut—a tingle of anticipation. The thrill of verbal or physical altercation brings out the part of me I’m always curious about. Do I have what it takes to rise to the occasion? Can I make good decisions under pressure? Will what I practice hold up when it matters? Am I who I say I am? It took me years to control my appetite for confrontation, and honestly, learning jiujitsu allowed me to see the importance of physical aggression tempered by patience and emotional regulation. It is a daily task of confronting how you feel, how an opponent makes you feel, and trying to overcome the humbling notion that winning is not what makes you better.

The reality is that you will lose—first emotionally, then mentally, and eventually physically. The gulf between knowing this and feeling it is vast. If you’ve never risked real physical confrontation, you don’t really know yourself—which means you’ll never truly know another. It’s strange, but those who avoid confrontation often avoid lasting relationships, too. The better I get at choking people unconscious the more meaningful and deep my relationships get. It’s a strange correlation but the connection is undeniable.

When the arena is real and the consequences matter, confrontation can bring you closer to the truth of who you are—and closer to those who truly see you, if you are both willing to look.

But that kind of growth never happens in a comment section or a passive-aggressive email. The digital age has bred a species of humans who project their faults onto others, and it’s fascinating to watch. If you’re obsessing over someone you claim to despise—an ex, a former friend, a random internet stranger—commenting, antagonizing, lurking, it doesn’t show your hate. It reveals how much you care, and how little you’re willing to confront in yourself. You’re your own worst enemy, and a secret fan of the person you project onto.

Entertainment—on screen and in our daydreams—feeds us stories about confrontation and overcoming antagonists. I see grown men believe they are capable because they draw a gun in the mirror quickly but run away from hard conversations. Women, who claim to be independent who can’t resist the urge to track every movement, comment, or footprint of those they claim to despise. This is delusion. As Will Storr writes about the word umwelt, every creature experiences reality differently: bats through sound, fish through vibration, humans through story. We will always paint ourselves the hero, but it’s worth exploring the enemy that lurks inside, revealed when confronting an adversary outside. To the unconscious, the more dramatic the conflict, the better sensation of becoming the protagonist. Your shadow proceeds you. The bored and uncreative create drama outside themselves to avoid the drama inside. They look like passionate friends, invested and loyal, but really, they’re just chasing their next fix—a scene, a problem, a tragedy to belong to.

People who pride themselves on burning bridges spend a lot of time looking back at the wreckage. They’re captivated and obsessed by the very connections they claim to have destroyed. It’s sad to have once behaved the same—nose in the air, neck craned around, hoping someone noticed my temper tantrum.

I consider myself a purist when it comes to confrontation. I am mostly—aggressively—confronting myself. I’ve lost these battles and lost friends. Other times I’ve won them and also lost friends. But I have lost no relationships that I didn’t wish to and because of that, I have no enemies. No one I wish ill will towards or think of as anyone other than a passing reflection of the lessons I needed to learn at the time.

Resentment is born of ignorance. The trespasses of others feel personal only because we refuse to understand. As Pascal noted centuries ago, “to forgive is to understand.” And this might be the most formidable weapon: increasing your own understanding until you no longer see a threat, just another human, terrified of themselves.

So here’s to anyone—past, present, or future—I might have considered an enemy. Thank you for the battle, but more so for the insight. Because of you, I understand myself better, and for that, I’ll always be a fan.