The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Understand: Envy occurs most commonly and painfully among
friends. We assume that something in the course of the relationship
caused the friend to turn against us. Sometimes all we experience is the
betrayal, the sabotage, the ugly criticisms they throw at us, and we
never understand the underlying envy that inspired these actions.
What we need to grasp is something paradoxical: people who feel
envy in the first place are often motivated to become our friends. Like
Jane, they feel a mix of genuine interest, attraction, and envy, if we

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have some qualities that make them feel inferior. Becoming our friend,
they can disguise the envy to themselves. They will often go even
further, becoming extra attentive and impatient to secure our
friendship. But as they draw closer, the problem gets worse. The
underlying envy is continually stirred. The very traits that might have
stimulated feelings of inferiority—the good position, the solid work
ethic, the likability—are now being witnessed on a daily basis.
And so as with Jane, a narrative is gradually constructed: the envied
person is lucky, overly ambitious, not nearly so great. As our friends,
enviers can discover our weak points and what will wound the most.
From within a friendship they are better positioned to sabotage us,
steal our spouse, spread mayhem. Once they attack us, we tend to feel
guilty and confused: “Perhaps I deserve some of their criticisms.” If we
respond angrily, this only feeds the narrative of our unlikable nature.
Because we were friends, we feel doubly wounded and betrayed, and
the deeper the wound, the greater the satisfaction for the envier. We
can even speculate that the envier is unconsciously drawn to
befriending the envied person in order to have this wounding power.
Although such fatal friends are elusive and tricky, there are always
warning signs. Learn to pay deeper attention to your first impressions.
(If only Mary had done so.) Often we intuit that the other person is
false but then forget this as they make friendly overtures. We always
feel better about people who seem to like us, and enviers know this
well. Rely upon the opinions of friends and neutral third parties. Many
friends of Mary found Jane conniving and even a bit scary. The envy of
the friend will also tend to leak out in sudden looks and disparaging
comments. Enviers will give puzzling advice—something that seems
against our interests but well reasoned on their part. They want us to
make mistakes and will often try to find a way to lead us into them.
Any success or increase in attention that we experience will cause
greater leakage of their true feelings.
It is not a question of becoming paranoid but simply of being alert
once you pick up some signs of possible envy. Learn to spot the types