When it's more than just jealousy
Let's tackle those ugly feelings.
Olá, pals! I’m writing this during a 36-hour stop-off in London, as I pack for a trip to Lisbon tomorrow. I’m downsizing the XL luggage I took to Madeira – where I was until yesterday – to a somewhat ambitious carry-on sized case for my 16 day stint in the Portuguese capital. A valuable exercise in minimalism, or a soon-to-be regret? The jury is out, as is most of my footwear.
Anyway, this is all a preamble to say that I haven’t got time to write a whole new post this week. Instead, I’ve lifted the paywall on one of my most-read posts of last year – all about the subject that is envy. Or, indeed, jealousy.
Which is a taboo subject, but one that might resonate with you if you’ve, say, spent your morning hearing about your infinitely more successful pal’s success. Or if you, say, visited your parents’ house recently, to learn that their miniature dachshund has territorially-pissed on your bed to show you how the pecking order goes, and then you stumble across one too many snaps from that glossy garden party everyone but you seems to have bagged an invite to.
So! You feel that pang of jealousy. Or is it envy? Well…
Envy and jealousy are words often used interchangeably: I’m envious of this, they’re jealous of that. But actually, there’s a subtle yet important distinction that I was unaware of when I first wrote this essay. A distinction I discovered precisely ten minutes ago, in fact. Here, according to the LanguageTool blog, is the difference between envy and jealousy (I’ve paraphrased):
Envy is what you want what someone has – as simple as that. Whereas, jealousy is when someone else gains something (e.g. an object, a relationship) that makes you feel threatened, or insecure, without necessarily wanting that thing for yourself.
For instance, maybe you feel envious of someone’s new two-bed maisonette in Maida Vale, because you wish you lived there. Yet you’re jealous of your friend’s new attached-at-the-hip partner Paul, even if you don’t find Paul attractive and wouldn’t snog him in a million years – because it’s not about wanting what your friend has (i.e. the specific partner), it’s about feeling jealous, perhaps irrationally, that Paul could replace you in your friend’s life.
Presumably, if you just find Paul smoking hot, and don’t actually miss your supposed pal, it could just be straightforward envy again. But you get the picture. And if you don’t, here’s another snippet straight from the horse’s (LanguageTool’s) mouth.
What you have to remember to use these words precisely is this: envy (the shorter word) requires two parties. It means you want what someone else has. Jealousy (the longer word) requires three parties and means you feel threatened or suspicious that someone might take what you already have.
All of this is yet another preamble to say…
I WAS WRONG!
Yes, wrong! When I first wrote the original version of this post, originally published in May 2024, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! (Isn’t it life-affirming to be wrong? It proves that every day does, in fact, have the potential to be a school day; that you never know what wrongness might be around the corner, waiting to teach you a lesson!)
Here’s why I was wrong: in the original version of the essay, I focused on envy, and the interrelated emotions it can evoke (e.g. fear and insecurity). But my terminology was off, because I was actually referring to envy’s more complex cousin, jealousy.
And so, because I’m all out of preambles, here’s that (now lightly-edited) post from May 2024. I hope you enjoy reading it, if you didn’t get a chance the first time round. And if you did – do leave me a comment and let me know (or just click the heart button for my self esteem, or best of all invite me to a goddamn garden party!)
Happy for you, sad for me: When hearing other people’s good news is challenging
Lately, I’m seeing a lot about envy jealousy. Inside Out 2 introduces a new emotion/character, Envy, voiced by The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri. In Louis Theroux’s interview with Adam Buxton this week, the old friends discuss podcast rivalry (including their own).
In recent years, there’s been Self Esteem’s hit song ‘I Do This All The Time’, which contains the memorable lyric: ‘The best night of your life was the absolute worst of mine’. Envy and jealousy feature in millennial memoirs: in Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton writes about her struggle to cope with her best friend Farly’s engagement, while in The Panic Years, Nell Frizzell shares her ambivalence towards her friend’s pregnancy announcement, at a time when she wanted to start her own family:
Of course it’s wonderful. But it can be other things, too.
- Nell Frizzell, The Panic Years
And yet (screechy handbrake turn), envy jealousy is not what I want to discuss here. At least, not directly. Instead, I want to explore an emotion that often gets confused with envy [again, JEALOUSY!]. One which it took me years to unpack.
That emotion is fear. Specifically, the flavours of fear that come after hearing other people’s good news.
Your thirties: All about the good news
One thing you receive a lot of, in your thirties, is other people’s good news. It’s a bit like that nursery rhyme: first comes the love, then comes the marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage, but make the baby carriage a two-bed in zone 7.
Statistically, it’s all happening in this decade; the socially-agreed upon milestones that constitute ‘good news’. The average age of a first time home buyer is 37 (38 in London); the average age of a first marriage is 30.6 for a woman (32.1 for men); and the average age for a first-time mother is 30.9 (33.7 for men). The average age for a PhD recipient is 31. You may well be approaching your peak salary, too, with one analysis finding women earn the most aged 40 (four years later for men) – so it’s likely the decade of impressive promotions.
What I’m getting at here, besides showing off my Big Data Energy, is that, from your thirties onwards, you’ll find yourself hearing about other people’s successes constantly, in a way you probably didn’t earlier on in adulthood, when everyone was immersed in housemate hell, hangovers and early-career Hunger Games.
The thing that feels ugly to admit? Sometimes, hearing other people’s good news is hard. You might want to be 100 per cent happy for your friend. You might be, hand on heart, between 70 and (on a really altruistic day) 90 per cent happy for them. But still, intermingled with that, there’s something… icky.
Now, if we were to use Occam’s razor (The simplest answer is usually the right one), identifying that ickiness is straightforward. Envy is defined as a ‘wish that you had something that another person has’. So, if your friend achieves something that, we’ve agreed upon as a society, is aspirational, and you do not have it, then you, my friend, are a jealous bitch. Go to jail and do not pass go!
And yet, I’ve surprised even myself with the degree of freudenfreude (a lesser-known German word for ‘happiness in other people’s happiness’) I’ve felt in my thirties, as loved ones have got married, had career success, purchased homes etc. I want these things to work out for them, and I find myself invested to the degree that I cried when one friend broke up with a long-term partner. Another time, I woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare that a family member and her partner split. I found myself deflated when a friend’s house purchase fell through. I know this sounds weird, or virtue-signalling, or whatever, but it is the reality. I want good things for my friends.
Perhaps it’s because I’m generally happy with my lot, which is largely down to privilege but also the fact I tend towards intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic, motivation. In Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies personality framework, I came out as a Questioner. This means I’m led by my own expectations of myself, rather than other people’s. Take, for instance, having children. A good few friends and close family members have become first-time parents over the past year. It would make no sense for me to envy them, because that’s not what’s right for me at this moment in my life.
But back to fear. If the unwelcome ‘ickiness’ I sometimes experience in response to other people’s good news isn’t (necessarily) envy, then what is it? Having reflected on this question over the past couple of years, I’ve realised it’s generally one of three things (or a combination thereof):
1. Feeling invalidated
‘If they do [insert lifestyle choice that’s different to mine], that means my lifestyle is inferior.’ I have a close friend who was once so similar to me, on paper (age, background, appearance, career, relationship history) that we had a long-running joke where we combined our names into one terrible portmanteau. A year ago, in the space of a few months, she met her now-husband and started a family. It was a ballsy, life-defining decision – and one she’s found a lot of happiness in. And I was happy for her. Yet, I won’t deny it made me panic, for a while, about my own choices. Our friendship, up until then, was a staple of my identity, amplifying the joys of the lifestyle we long shared. I had to recalibrate: finding other friends who shared my lifestyle, and finding a stronger conviction within myself. I learnt that she and I could still thrive simultaneously – just, this time, in very different ways.
2. A scarcity mindset
‘If they have [insert aspirational thing], I will never get it.' Honestly, I think this is worse for women – and this ELLE feature agrees. After all, wedding bouquet throwing is still a thing. In a world where we’re conditioned to think otherwise, I find peace in reminding myself: Her success is not your failure.
3. Abandonment issues
‘If they do X/Y/Z, they won’t want me in their lives anymore.’ For instance, if a friend moves in with their partner on the other side of town, you might worry that means you’ll spend less time together. This might also be the case if a friend becomes a new parent. What I’ve found is you can’t predict when people drop in, or out, of your life: it might be a new baby, it might be an all-consuming job. Some changes might bring you closer, rather than further apart. What I have found is some creativity, and flexibility, go a long way in making friendship work when your lives look really different.
At the core of these reactions, there is fear. Not envy [/jealousy], fear. Fear of not being enough; fear that there’s not enough; fear of being abandoned.
And that’s OK. Change is scary. That’s true of both your own changes, and other people’s. And yet, friendship isn’t a commitment to stay the same. OK, some are (which is why we have the phrase, ‘a friend for a reason, for a season, or a lifetime’). Yet, long-term friendship is an arrangement which involves navigating life’s ups and downs together. In ways which might drive you apart but, equally, might take you down all sorts of paths that, sitting in a back garden somewhere in 40 years, you look back and marvel at.
The ironic thing about other people’s good news? It’s often just as complex as your reaction. While socially-celebrated, relationships, babies, new jobs are all difficult challenge to embark upon, even when everything seems to be going right. As much as it might sound like a humble brag, weddings are stressful to plan, ditto home renovations. If you receive someone’s good news and you’re struggling with envy, fear or any related emotions, they’re probably recalibrating in their own way – and will, odds are, value your support and fresh perspective. You only have to remain close in order to learn that.Â
Until next week (from Lisbon!),
Francesca
