I brought this up in February this year – Facebook Friends of Friends and Friends of Enemies but it is back on my mind today.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That is an old Arabic (and also Chinese) proverb. I have also heard it said, that the friend of my enemy is also my enemy. What do you think about this? I have trouble drawing hard lines here, due to the Venus Neptune aspect in my chart I suppose but I am willing to relay my experiences.
Ten years ago I met, HQ and there was this gal I liked a lot at the time. She super smart and a great writer and I told, HQ how much I liked her. Based on my good feelings about her and my good experience, he extended himself to her but she was not nice to him at all. Could be she didn’t like men. I didn’t know and he didn’t know but he told me she’d bitten his head off twice and he was going to retreat.
I got a lesson in Asian culture at this time as well. Asians vouch for one another. You treat your friend’s friend well which is exactly what this woman did not do and, HQ was taken aback or whatever. However you want to characterize it, he decided not to continue interacting with her.
A few weeks later she bit my head off. You might have seen that coming, I can’t say that I did. I am pretty idealistic, or at least I was pretty idealistic in situations like this (Venus Neptune) back then. I also like to think of people independently as well as come to my own conclusions so when, HQ had his experience, I did not bleed it over into mine.
I can’t say that I feel this way anymore. I am not sure if this due to my age, or if I have burned too many times of if it is just that my logic 10 years ago was flawed in the first place. These days, if you run with my enemy I am most definitely nervous about you and just pretty much want to keep as much distance as possible.
Having said that, Venus Neptune is still in play because this is not a hard rule for me. There are some people who are involved with people who have deeply hurt or offended me but I just plain like them so much, I don’t care. A person in this category would also be someone with a high standard of integrity and just in general be very trustworthy. They’d be someone I know for sure is a friend. Also, in these cases there is usually an extenuating circumstance like someone has to work with my enemy or they may be related.
You see what I am getting at. I can’t come up with a hard and fast rule although I can say, I will avoid friends of my enemies whenever possible because the nervous factor is always there and I prefer relaxed , happy relations.
If someone hangs out with your enemies, can you still consider them a friend? What is the astrology?
I have a friend that is friends with my enemy, but I don’t worry about it because my friend doesn’t know that I even know the third person, let alone that I’m enemies with them.
I know other people who are friends with my enemy, and I treat them with the greatest caution and suspicion and avoid them when possible.
I don’t have a hard and fast rule, I adjust on an individual basis.
Not sure of the astrology, Moon conjunct Pluto opposite Saturn I guess.
Nope, I cut them off. (pluto/8th house)
I envy you, eg and Lis. I would prefer your MO but can’t make it work in my life so have to have all these wavy lines.
on facebook I have 9 friends in common with the long term boyfriend who raped me on the way out the door of our relationship. they may be my facebook friends but none of those people are my Friends. I see no reason to “unfriend” them as there is no relationship and we’re not bothering each other.
I stay away from “friends of the enemy”… and if I have to interact I keep it very light and polite… I just don’t want to have to walk a tightrope with my friends…
Neptune and Saturn in 11th (Nep opp Venus) and this has derailed me so many times that now I slide away from any potential close friendships. I suppose we all have the ‘friends in common’ syndrome even if like me, we physically remove ourselves from the place of trouble. Where I live now, if you innocently compliment someones’ enemy or even their enemy’s family, they might not ever speak to you again, so I think this is probably worse in small communities. Thank goodness for the internet, even though the same thing happens there you’re not going to see people crossing the road when they see you coming just because you asked the wrong questions.
My dad always told me this but his favorite version is “birds of a feather flock together”. That if someone hangs out with your enemy, consider why. It is information
Satori, I love ya… but that is beyond piscean.
This is an example of why I can’t do facebook. I do not want any lines (virtual as they may be) drawn between me and certain people. The word “friend” has become semantically bleached and this makes me sad.
My best friend is a 7th house Cancer. The other day we were at whole foods and she said “I should buy k a fancy beer while we’re here.” I said “I thought you hated her.” She says, get this “I do, but I still want her to like me.”
WTF!? not my school of thought at all. I love having an enemy. Someone to absorb all my neurotic projections. An enemy does me a service and for that I am grateful.
What was the question again, LOL! Oh yeah, if my friends have a known enemy I do not get involved. If my friends get involved with my enemy (like a real enemy that is… 12th house mars I have some imagined enemies, I dont really care what happens to them) They’re out. Fuck ’em. Bye.
Sometimes it’s necessary to put up with friends of the enemy… but I prefer not to.
I’ve had a couple of experiences (once in the 70s and again in the 90s) where someone has set out to do me real damage, and I’ve felt very uncomfortable with mutual friends who have tried to keep a foot in both camps. A few of these have been very good friends too – it did change our relationship: I had to take a step back
Timing on this is freaky. This very thing circling my head today in particular. Not sure what to do, if anything. Just being cautious, waiting, and wondering what’s going on mostly.
I have no friends of enemies to worry about because I have no enemies. If you cross me once, I’ve eviscerated you and all your kin, thus no problem. If I like you then we’re friends forever, or until the above happens, and then you’re dead to me and so are your friends. Metaphorically speaking of course. 🙂
(Venus in the 4th in Leo and Black Moon Lilith conjunct Scorpio Moon in the 7th)
Avoid. This will probably bite you in the ass if you don’t avoid.
Satori, you are being extremely generous to those people. For the most part, I don’t care whether you like someone whom I do not like. However, I do expect my friends and family to be treated with respect. If one of my siblings was rude to my husband, I am offended. If my husband was rude to a sibling, I would be offended. I expect that if they cared about me, they would treat the ones whom I love with respect. But rape is a different story. That man tried to damage and hurt you. I agree those people do not have a meaningful relationshiop with you. But you may be harming yourself by not defriending them. They could be a conduit for him. I have seen that done.
It’s interesting, because I don’t see myself as having any enemies. I’m probably wrong, but I like to live blissfully unaware. I have no idea what the astrology of that is. Maybe it’s also my Venus square Neptune?
social networking is not friendship. there are friends in my social networking but some people are former friends who over time and distance are no longer close. there are people whose association I have accepted was just based on friendly acquaintance and there was the possibility through further association they could have become friends.
friendly acquaintance does not equal friendship and I have no interest in policing anyone. most of those people don’t know what happened anyway. the only one who does is no longer a Friend, but a friendly acquaintance. It’s not like I check people’s friendslists before I accept a request.
Pisces faces the catch 22 of being told to get over stuff and stop being so sensitive but when we do we are told that’s not okay either.
Blurry lines.
I used to be friends with X.
X has known Leo for 25 years.
They are not close, but they were, once upon a time.
X and I fell out in a big way, as did X and Leo.
Leo has KIND OF let X back in, insofar as he acknowledges him in public. I don’t. LOL. But on the odd occasion I bump into X, he will ask me a question, and I will answer. We do not converse at all.
Recently something quite horrible happened to X’s child, who I knew intimately when this child was young. I did extend my condolences because they were genuine. He accepted and that was that. X knows, I know the details of his child’s predicament and is comfortable with Leo telling me, mostly because X KNOWS HE FUCKING SOLD ME DOWN A RIVER and he lost a good person as a friend because of it.
I know longer feel hate and animosity towards him but will never let him back in, either. Leo is pretty perturbed about the whole thing.
He, too, has Uranus in his 11th.
Ha. Satori, I guess that’s cuz you get over it so completely!
“WTF!? not my school of thought at all. I love having an enemy. Someone to absorb all my neurotic projections. An enemy does me a service and for that I am grateful.”
Nota, I love this. I feel the same way about certain people from high school
Friends of enemies are the most dangerous of all . . . they seem to be harmless but it’s with these people we are more likely to let our guard down (IMO) than with the enemy themselves.
You hang out with my enemy and you’ve just made my culling process easy. (Mars in Scorpio ;-))
Hard-liner, here…If you run with an enemy of mine, I am certain that you will prove to be trouble for me; it would only be a matter of time. Leo sun, h. 2 Libra moon opposing h. 8 Jupiter/Aries.
These days? No!
Venus conj Saturn in Aquarius in the 12th? Mercury Pisces? Moon Pisces? Uranus Virgo? I like to know where I stand in relationships and don’t trust people, on the whole. If there is someone I find so disagreeable as to be considered my enemy – and you are friendly with that person? Nope. You are gone. And don’t give me that “it’s just business” bullshit. People can not be trusted IMHO.
You scare me, Elsa – lol. I’m having this dilemma on Facebook right now. I am very picky about who I allow to “friend” me, and I don’t like the latest person’s friend list! This goes back to high school, so I’m still debating if I will accept the friend request or not.
I am sorry, Isernia. I don’t mean to scare people. I just wonder if people have a policy on this.
Ok the full moon must be nearly over or something because my head is clearing.
To clarify, if I have enemies, it’s their stuff, not mine that caused it. Very rarely, I will have one very old friend or someone peripherally in common with someone I cut out of my life. If the remaining friend keeps that person I cut as an aquaintance or friend, I distance from the remaining friend but don’t cut. It tends to just fall away if they’re the same as the one I cut.
I prefer that. Cutting hurts me as much as it might hurt those I have cut (Venus in Libra, sun scorp). And when I cut, it’s after much effort to meet halfway, understand etc. – unless they’ve manipulated me in the first place and their true self comes out later, in which case, that’s not going to make me like or trust them.
Usually, those I cut are newbies to my life (within a few years usually). And if I have a solid friend who also got to know them, they tend to distance/cut also with the one I cut out. That tells me my solid long term friend is a keeper. If they play both sides, that I don’t like but try to understand (THEY may have Venus in Libra!! lol) But if it was something horrific like a crime as the reason for an enemy, if ANYONE I know is in contact with them, I stay far away. I don’t and can’t know anyone like that even peripherally.
As for Facebook, it’s my mindless true friend/family happy place. I’ve had aquaintances ask to be a friend. I ignore those requests now. Also, I don’t use my real name anywhere really. My thinking is, if I knew you decades ago but you’re not in my life today, that’s because I don’t want you in my life today. So nobody old finds me except very very rarely via someone else. And even then, I avoid now as new policy implemented just this year! lol 🙂
Sorry that was so long. Whew. This friend/enemy stuff is so draining just writing about it. gah.
No, no – scary as in “bullseye” because your posts are always so timely, like “How’d she know I was thinking about that?!” It is about astrology, after all, so it only makes sense that what you talk about is what we are experiencing in one way or another!
Satori said: “social networking is not friendship”.
Very, very true!!
I resisted Facebook and only joined to try to win a cruise (I did not). I’ve had my account less than one year. My daughter has an account, so I keep mine to keep tabs. I seriously debate about deleting my account because I am big on privacy (and they keep your info, which I hate, which is why I resisted for so long).
It HAS allowed friends from my past to find me easily and vice versa, so it has come in handy. Since my divorce, it has helped me re-establish relationships that fell away as life went on.
However, mindlessly “friending” people is something I do not understand. I have 25 “friends,” and I debated about accepting several of those. I prefer to keep my list to real friends only, and to people I was already friendly with in high school.
I do think it’s a nice way to keep in touch and share some laughs, as not everyone can afford to get together in person, either due to time, distance or money constraints.
Social networking, in that particular context, is real friendship, in a 21st century sort of way.
Elsa is talented in being able to translate astrology into what is physically happening in our lives. There are many different ways this can manifest, and I find that interesting. One level for this topic is definitely Facebook and the “friending” issue, as that is how this manifested for me. I was literally debating whether to accept a “friend” based on his “friends,” some of whom I just do not care for at all. Sometimes the aspects materialize symbolistically.
As far as I know I only have one enemy that is currently in my everyday life. She decided to befriend me at work, three years ago, at a time when my father’s health was sharply deteriorating (he died about five months into the friendship). I was stupid enough to confide in her about the machinations some people were using to try and get their hands on my father’s money, and about his abuse of me.
Four months after my father died, all of us in the department underwent additional training. It was coming up on my father’s birthday, and I tend to isolate when I’m feeling bad as I was then. This “friend” got very offended that I didn’t spend breaks and lunches joking around with the group, dramatically emailed me proclaiming our friendship over, and didn’t even care to know why I wasn’t being social.
Because it was a work situation, I attempted to be cordial when having to interact with her, but that was it. No one at work had any idea of what had happened. She ended up taking six months off last year on a medical leave, and apparently my failure to welcome her back when she returned was the impetus for what has turned into seven months of badmouthing, trying to get me fired, etc. She has a lot of friends at work now, and many of those people will not even speak to me whereas they were pleasant before.
A few people that she’s friends with, though, are nice to me. And these people are ones who, in other circumstances, I might like to be friends with, but I cannot trust them.
Her chart features a square between her Moon and her Mars/Uranus/Pluto conjunction. The square hits my 11th and 2nd houses.
(In case anyone is curious… I’ve never said anything about her to anyone at work, as to me it seems unprofessional and petty.)
A dear friend of long standing who lives interstate is a conduit (unknowingly) for an enemy who tries to keep tabs on what I’m doing with my life. When the enemy had access to me- which she no longer has- this often resulted in imitation but it didn’t feel flattering, just obsessive.
I don’t contact my friend any more and when she contacts me I feel wary. The information I give about myself is edited and as boring as can be.