Last week on MAFS Australia was practically biblical. A battle and a betrayal at the couples retreat in Byron Bay left friendships in tatters, as Jamie demanded that everyone back her up in her fight with Lauren, or lose her friendship forever. It was, of course, the kind of drama we live for.
But it was also quite sad. What began as a fissure between two women quickly escalated into a full-scale war – and as far as Jamie was concerned, there was no room for bystanders. You were either with her or against her.
Of course, Jamie’s perspective isn’t hard to understand. We all want that ride or die friend – someone who will back us up in our toughest times and show up for us no matter what.
But Jamie’s recent saga on MAFS Australia illustrated an uncomfortable truth – perhaps the concept of the ride or die friend misinterprets the very fundamentals of friendship.
A quick recap of what went down: The drama began when Jamie took it upon herself to confront Lauren about her relationship with Clint at the girls’ night during the couples retreat. While many of the women seemed to agree with Jamie's approach, Carina and Rhi were more non-committal. “I’m a Switzerland,” Carina said in an interview. “I want everyone to come together and be friends… everyone wanted answers, but there’s ways to go about it.” When Lauren left the room alone, Carina and Rhi followed her out — it was, in Jamie’s eyes, the first unforgivable betrayal. “That is disloyalty if I ever did see it," she said in her interview. The following evening, the couples all met up for final night drink. Things quickly escalated into a screaming match – and instead of screaming alongside Jamie, Carina and Rhi tried to talk her down. For Jamie, this was the final straw. “I am so hurt. I am beyond hurt," Jamie said later. "Where were my friends when I needed them?… My friends have completely dropped the ball.”
“Everybody is on their own journey, and even if someone is neurodivergent and doesn't know it, they might not be ready to hear it.”
The fact that Lauren was unkind to all of the women in the group is beside the point – Rhi and Carina saw behaviour in Jamie they didn’t agree with, and when they tried to calmly call it out and refused to follow her lead, they were deemed to be traitors. In fact, Jamie couldn’t even see that there was a difference between calling out her methods and disagreeing with her entirely. After all, they didn’t agree with Lauren’s behaviour either.
At the dinner party the next evening, Jamie was on a mission – to get an apology from the traitors or renounce their friendship forever. When Carina tried to reiterate her position, Jamie refused to listen and shut her down, telling her to “shut her mouth.”
Meanwhile, Rhi was clearly terrified she’d say the wrong thing and find herself in trouble, and she apologised to Jamie.
But Carina wasn’t a ride or die friend – and, in Jamie’s eyes, that is not a friend worth having.
On the one hand, it’s easy to see why so many of us prize unconditional loyalty in our friends. After all, it’s a gratifying thought: my friends will back me no matter what. But as the Jamie saga shows, it’s not always all that healthy to expect our friends to be our own personal army.
In Jamie’s eyes, friends are not there to question or call out our own behaviour – they’re there to fight for us and with us. But… should they? Is that really friendship? Someone who blindly backs you up and never encourages you to be better?
The dinner party is downright uncomfortable. Jamie refuses to consider the fact that her actions might have been inappropriate – in fact, she is blatantly offended when people in the group suggest that she should pause and reflect on how she’s acting. In turn, she turns on Carina in full force. She becomes vindictive, even cruel to her so-called “friends” after they don’t show the ride or die qualities she expects.
Dearly Beloved, it's time to gather around your TV screens.
But of course, friends are not a personal army blindly following us into battle. In fact, our real and best friends are the people who are able to look at our hardest situations with empathy and, most importantly, perspective, before giving us the hard truths we may not want to hear. No one likes the idea of being betrayed by a friend. But disagreeing with someone's actions is not betrayal – in fact, it can be the bravest form of loyalty. Instead of enabling unhelpful, unhealthy behaviour and hyping you up to set the world alight, a true friend is someone who will be brave enough to talk us down and calmly draw us away from the battle lines. And unlike Jamie, we have to be willing to hear them.
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