They might wreck our heads, but our frenemies make us work harder

Frenemies; we all have them.

Female friendships can be very complex, and while we all have our besties to sing our praises and hug us when we're down; we also have our frenemies who make snarky comments and and give us side eye at just about every opportunity.

We love them… and we hate them at the same time, and while they only seem to be there when they need something, it actually turns out that they make us work harder and be better people.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

While many complain that women need to raise each other up (which we're ALL for), science has a different understanding.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina studied a group of undergraduates and found that we should all cherish our frenemies.

The experts had the undergraduates text each other; half of them sent messages of encouragement, and the other half sent messages to undermine the students.

Once frenemies were established (the scientific term is 'ambivalent relationship' FYI), the students were told to edit an error-filled blog post that they were told was written by their new friend or frenemy.

The blog post was actually written by the researchers and they found that the frenemies edited the posts better than the people who were friendly with each other.

So, why do we perform better in front of our frenemy? Well, basically the researchers explain that frenemies get under our skin in a way that nobody else can.

And even though we do a hella lotta complaining about them, we're subconsciously interested in what makes them tick, and how we can work around it.

Therefore, we want to present our best selves in front of them, and will push ourselves to work harder if they're in our surroundings.