The Common Enemy

It applies in the business world

It applies in country v.s country war battles

And lastly, it applies with people.

“Trashing the same person often helps people bond. …. The power of this initial spark of shared antipathy, it seems, comes from what negativity implies. Everyone, after all, can say kind things. And everyone does. This is how we supposedly make friends: by being nice. But by going negative—thereby breaking a general rule of first impressions—you signal that you instinctively trust this new person, because you suspect he or she might feel the same way.” (“Hating The Same Things,” New York Magazine, 3/27/2011)

The hard fact is that when you meet someone for the first time, one of the easiest ways to bond is over someone you both dislike.

Sadly, this is the cheapest way to break the ice.

Hating the same thing or person can foster a click between two people; whether your common enemy is a person, a celebrity or even a restaurant, suddenly you become an ‘us, vs’ and it’s the two of you against the world….

or the restaurant.

In High School for instance, this bonding-mechanism is a frequent occurrence.

Picture it like this, two girls have just become friends, one day they start chatting but don’t have much to talk about.

One of them mentions a mutual friend. The other asks a soft ‘Do you like her’ and one answers, ‘Promise you won’t say anything if I tell you?’ and after the agreement of silence has been finalized, it comes out, the confession- ‘I kind of can’t stand her!’ and suddenly the other admits she can’t either!

The two now feel like they can breath, they relax in their seats and feel a kind of mischievous feeling… like they shouldn’t be admitting this sort of stuff, they shouldn’t be gossiping- immediate bonding of shared antipathy.

 This coping-method unfortunately can backfire tremendously as one friend can all of a sudden re-unite with the enemy again and the other friend is then left all alone with all of her secret confessions she had revealed left on the line and the possibility that in the future she will get humiliated.

So… what do you think?

Is it worth having a friend solely based on hatred for someone else, where most of the time all you are able to talk about is negativity towards another individual?

X Zo