Competition and friendship
As we begin reading A Separate Peace, we will be exploring the different components of friendship, competition, and jealousy.
To help us get started, we'll explore how competition can affect friendship. For this prompt, write a response of about 150 words that discusses how competition might affect a friendship. What happens when friends compete with one another? What impact does it have on the relationship. Use examples you might know from your own life, from television shows, movies, or any literature.
Remember to proofread your response before submitting it.
13 comments:
Friends usually have the same common interests which usually mean that they play similar sports, or do similar activities. In sports, friends who are teammates are often competing for a spot on the team or the attention of the coach. For girls, I know that we tend to get jealous because one friend will be hanging out with another. So, competition for that friend’s attention is often common and when one friend doesn’t get the attention, it might ruin the relationship because of jealousy. Competition is good because it tends to bring out the best in people. In sports, people play as hard as they can and practice for as long as they can to win the championship or students will study for hours a night just to receive that A on a science test. Competition makes you focus on what you can do to make yourself better at a task be it school, sports, or in a friendship. I also know that competition makes people act different. They may start to lie or they may begin to become conniving. These two characteristics are unwanted in a friendship which would cause one friend to give up on alliance.
-Emily
One way competition can affect friendship is when to friends find something that they both want and cant share. Although in some friendships the friends might be good enough to come to some agreement, it is also very possible that those two friends will compete over it and when that happens usually their friendship will either be broken, or it will be damaged permanently. Competition could also be good in a friendship, like playing games or sports. Especially if those two friends are on the same team, then usually it will make their friendship stronger.
-Brede
A frienship can be severely corrupted by competition. They two friends can let their new, fierce emotions of desire to beat out one another get in the way of their old, friendly feelings toward each other. Because humans can experience such an acute onset of overwhelming rage, it can grow fiercer and prove to be more toxic to a friendship if nothing is done to resolve it the competition. Eventually, the negative emotions overtake the positive and destroy the relationship. This can happen easily because it is much easier to let anger overtake someone than it is to apologize and "swallow your pride."
-Jena
Friendships can definitely be damaged by competition. Two friends can't really compete for the same thing and have it end well. Whether it be attention, a sports competition or the best grade on a test. Someones always going to be jealous. Like if two friends were on the same sports team, and one made the winning shot, the other friend would get jealous if they got all the attention.
- Karen.
Competition brings out the best or the worst in people. People always want to win because they like the feeling of pride and superiority. For example, when people play games they get competitive because they all have the same goal but there’s only one winner. Depending on how much they want to win, some people might put in all their effort to win while some might try to cheat and deceive others. This can damage friendship because people might want something so badly that they may not think friendship is as important to them. Friends might get blinded by their desire to obtain something and believe that it’s okay to hurt your friends to get what they want. This might lead to some regretful actions like hurting their friends by taking advantage of their relationship and using what they know about each other. For example, if someone is trying to get someone’s attention they can abase their opponent by telling their secrets or making up rumors...ash
Competition can lead to the destruction of any type of friendship. When friends compete over something, they forget about their friendship. They forget about all the good times they’ve had and how they’ve been there for each other. They forget all this to focus on what they are competing for. Everything that happens in the competition effects the friendship for example you and your friend are competing for a girl and when you see that friend with that girl you get jealous and start hating him, or if your competing to be the best swimmer, and you know your friend is better then you, and you decide to cheat or something then thats were all your negative emotions take over and the positive is left behind because you start hating your friend for being the best and forcing you to cheat...after what ever competition is done all the hate for that person stays the way it is.
-Deny
I think that any group of friends or just two friends that start doing a competition will end up getting into a fight. For example let's say two friends want to see who can run faster and get to the finish line first, and they tie but one thinks they got over the finish line first. They will end up getting into a fight and maybe they won't end up talking to eachother again. Also there was this one time in a book I read and the two best friends got into a fight because one thought they did better then the other one.
Jack
Friend ship is important yet it continues to get ruined by competition people compete for friends like it is a game. They think it is a game then people get in fights over friends. And then friends choose other friends and then people loose friends and it turns into one big huge mess because people will stop talking to people and then nobody will talk things out. And at the end people hate people and u end up making enemies and loosing friends.
+john+
I think that competition is in a good way and in a bad way too. The bad way is that the competition can go way too far. It can lead to like any kind of bad relationship with your friends. Competition can be with a friend or even a team. You can compete in anything. Such as football, basketball, swimming, any sport. You can be very jealous if your friends gets an award and you don’t, you would probably want a rematch and try to compete harder to get that same award. It could also loose friendship if you want to compete so hard you may loose friendship. It good if you want to compete but if you go too far there is a chance that you could lose your friends forever. It could also lead to an injury. You can get very injured. You can pull a hamstring, break a bone anything that leads to competition if you go way too far. Now competition in a good way is that you can get good prizes and try to make friends if you don’t make a mistake.
Elyssa
Competition can ruin a friendship usually by jealousy. Friends can sometimes want something their friend has. Friends sometimes argue because they want a certain friend so they would try to showoff to get his/her attention by acting childish. By them creating problems with one another this causes competition. They do this to prove each other to see who is capable of winning or even to see who has a better chance. But also competition can get real competitive with a sport. For example, if both friend’s play the same sport and they try to see who is the best, or who did better then this can create problems with there friendship.
victoria
Friendships are always affected by competetition. In my opinion, I do not think that a friendship would function if there was no competition. Many times friends play sports together or enjoy similar things. Friends are always trying to better than the other friend. Often times fighting to be better is going to create somewhat of a disagreement and friends can get mad at each other. Although, it is competeition that drives us and what keeps us going. Competition makes us want to better oursleves. So to say that it is completely harmful is wrong. There is always going to be some sort of competition within a friendship. Competition can create jealousy and heated feelings towards your friends cause us to fight, but at the same time it creates excitement in our friendships. So competition can bring out our bad sides and it can bring out our good sides, but it is always best to remember that you are friends and that no matter who wins or who loses you are still friends and you must keep it that way.
JAKE.
Usually, people become friends with someone with common interests. A friend never wants to feel inferior among his group of friends or with a single friend. People always like to be at the same level or at a higher level than their friends because it's just the human nature. The competition could have to do with athletics, academics, or music, or anything else they value. Competition has the ability to ruin friendship when it's at it's highest magnitude. For example, if two athletic friends happen to play against each other in a very serious game that they both strongly feel is very important, neither of them want to lose because they'd feel shameful of facing defeat from a friend. If such an intense competition occurs among friends, then the competitor might start to value winning more than friendship. This is one of the evils of competition; while it eoncourages you to do your best, it also carries you away with the desire of winning that you forget everything else.
Anjita
I enjoy reading your students' comments.
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