There's actually a quick, practical way of assessing this.

It may be a more important time than ever to know not just who your friends and enemies are, but those confusing social interactions which, for lack of personal information, connection and in-person meeting, are somewhere in between.

Whether we are talking about women or men, I am sure you have been "crossed" in your time - betrayed, let down, cheated, used, disrespected, or at least turned off in your friendships or dating. It's never been as raw, painful, and as urgent to understand the roots of these as it is right now - in light of yet another suicide in a youth after being chronically bullied - the sad story of Phoebe Prince.

I've thought about this a lot over the past few months, taking people I know or have known, side by side, and wondering what the common factors are. What was the common element in someone who proves to be a friend, an enemy, a bully or a "frenemy" after all is said and done.

This word, "frenemy," is one of those wonderful, comic neologisms was first mentioned on the TV drama, Sex and the City and more recently joked about by Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, and yet on further reflection, you may realize that it is an incredibly useful word. It addresses those situations where someone smiles to our face, but eventually proves true to have had ulterior motives toward us. Someone who gives us praise one moment, but spreads gossip unnoticed by us the very next. Someone we hire as a consultant, for a service, or for guidance, or whom we know collegially, but are never quite sure is on our side. Is it the money we pay them, the interests we share or differ on, or simply because they are mature enough to often do what's right by others?

So many youth use social media today, that it grows everyday in terms of how friends and enemies are perceived, and with bullying by that means coming into the fore as well, it makes sense to turn an eye a little more serious than Mr. Colbert to this term, frenemy, the "precursor" to friends, enemies, and bullies. I will show you how to spot these four types of relationships by looking at internet blog comments and friend comments.

Liking, Loving, Disliking, and Hating

Maybe you have noticed that it's very possible to "like" a person and yet not "love" them, or to "love" a person but not "like" them at the moment. This dual aspect of liking and loving in a friendship occurs because these states take place in different areas of the brain. Intellectually, we "like those who are like us," as Robert Cialdini states in his book, Influence: the Power of Persuasion. We like those who share opinions, beliefs, values, goals and common experience or background. Emotionally, we love each other because, simply, we make each other happy and raise each other's self esteem. (Both of these are different things from "desire" or "passion.")

So we have a constructive criticism for our friends, in which we advise, point out flaws, suggest and direct them toward maturity and right without causing offense. We "like those who are like us," and yet, reciprocal altruism is also present in which we "like those who like us." Which is much like being an advocate for each other.

On the flipside, our enemies dislike us, as we do them. They certainly don't love us either, but may not express absolute hatred that can carry impulsivity, loss of control, and in the end, the tendency to invade boundaries, emotional or even physical. Enemies in other words, can still have maturity, boundaries, and even carry our respect in the presence of dislike.

So strangers aside, our friends like us and love us, are constructive critics and advocates in one.

Our enemies dislike us, and are neither constructive critics, nor advocates.

Bullies are either enemies that go too far, or objectify us entirely - expressing a hatred that invades boundaries and may cross from the emotionally immature to the criminally physical.

Frenemies are, well, perhaps everyone else known to us as more than a stranger. They are the precursors to the other three, and are either a constructive critic, but non-advocate, or an advocate who doesn't know us, or the situation at hand, to be a fit critic, and may not be either for long.

Critical Advocacy

Whether looking at an auto mechanic, a doctor, lawyer, business partner, cosigner on a loan, journalist you are working with, member of a sports team, club, or even someone you are considering to marry, there is an especially useful way to look at people, their intentions toward you, and the quality and degree of friendship bonds you share.

It turns out there are only two common factors to look at, and only one profile of another person absolutely guarantees they are on your side, on your team, and "with you" for the long haul.

I encapsulate it in a phrase I use now, called "Critical Advocacy."

Watching the latest celebrity scandals, political conflicts such as the atrocious harassment of Congressmen, or the ever shifting journalism landscape away from "just the facts" toward what they are calling "Advocacy Journalism," I looked at this term and wondered how it compared to the old view of the classical critic - one who could be of either the constructive or destructive variety.

Add to this some thought about how important communication is in both our friendships and conflicts, and its inaccuracy when we don't really know others so well personally - that objectification of others that happens through electronic communication at times, and causes "spamming," "flaming," and the threatening, annoying, anonymous naysayers so known to clutter the internet with spiteful, hateful, childish comments.

Clearly, communication has two aspects - it conveys data on the one hand, but emotion on the other.

To read the actions and words of another through a filter for friendship, enemies, and everything in between - "frenemies" - we would need to address both parts. Both the "data" and the "emotion" in their behavior toward us.

"Critical Advocacy" fits that bill.

Your Critics

Someone who is a "critic" in your life - of the positive kind - has the three C's: Concern, Competence, and Constructiveness.

1. First, they are concerned about you enough to want details, and to speak in those details. They have the ability to pay attention to the world around them. They don't make flippant, sloppy, or thoughtless comments about you or in conversation with you. They are "present." They are self-aware, and observant.

2. They are competent to have an opinion on you, your life, and your actions. They aren't ill-informed about who you are, the issues at hand, and have some knowledge and experience with both. Not merely dependent on sheer intelligence, or necessitating it at all, they have a desire to learn and teach, have "lived in yoru shoes," or at least empathy about what it would be like to be you. Some of their expertise may be through formal education, but some through life's experience at the situations at hand. They know what they are talking about in other words.