Enemies to Lovers: Can It Happen in Real Life?
Entry No. 164 ·
By The IF Team
Can enemies become lovers in real life? Sometimes, though rarely the way the books tell it. Real dislike — contempt, mockery, wanting the other person to fail — almost never turns into love. What does, surprisingly often, is rivalry: two evenly matched people who spar, notice each other constantly and enjoy the friction more than either will admit. There are good psychological reasons why that charge can turn into attraction. The skill is telling banter you both enjoy from conflict that only one of you does, because only the first is a love story.
If you have caught yourself looking forward to an argument with one particular person, nothing is wrong with you, and you are far from the first. The difficulty with a rival is that admitting it means dropping the game, and dropping the game feels like losing. IF is a dating app built for feelings that are hard to say to someone’s face. Whatever your relationship status, and whoever has got under your skin, you can tell them honestly in an IF, and it waits to be acted on when the time is right for you both.
Friction is only one route into attraction; the psychology of attraction maps the others.
Why the story is everywhere
Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Beatrice and Benedick, whose “merry war” of insults in Much Ado About Nothing is four centuries old. Kat and Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You, Anthony and Kate in the second season of Bridgerton, and a whole shelf of novels that readers recommend to each other by the trope’s name alone. Enemies to lovers may be the most durable plot in romance.
It works on the page because it promises something everyone wants: to be seen clearly, flaws included, by someone who could not be charmed and chose you anyway. Fiction compresses it, though. Real rivals rarely hate each other. They are colleagues competing for the same promotion, two people on a course who always have their hands up, the friend of a friend who disagreed with everything you said at the first dinner. The “enemy” part is usually a misread first impression with a competitive streak.
Why friction can turn into attraction
A racing heart is easy to misread
In a famous 1974 study, Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron had a researcher approach passers-by on either a high, swaying footbridge or a low, solid one, and give them her phone number. Those she met on the swaying bridge were more likely to call. The idea became known as the misattribution of arousal: a body that is keyed up for one reason can read the feeling as attraction to whoever is nearby. Later researchers have questioned how much that one study shows, but the everyday version is familiar. An argument raises your pulse and sharpens your attention, and it is easy to mistake that for chemistry, or to discover it was chemistry all along.
You pay attention to them constantly
Rivalry means tracking someone: what they said in the meeting, what they will say next, what you should have said back. You think about them on the bus home. Attention like that is the raw material of a crush, and it is hard to give someone that much of it without some of it turning warm.
Teasing is often flirting
Psychologists who reviewed the research on teasing describe it as a playful provocation, and note that people tease to socialise, to flirt and to settle conflicts, and that the same playful jab can end in closeness or in hurt, depending on how it is done and how it lands. Between two people who both enjoy it, a running joke at each other’s expense can be a way of saying “I see you” without having to say it.
An equal is attractive
Someone who can keep up with you, who argues back, who is good at the thing you are good at, earns a respect that a pushover never could. That respect is easy to mistake for irritation, especially at first. It is also a far better foundation than sparks alone, which is the difference between chemistry and compatibility in a nutshell.
Not knowing keeps them on your mind
With a rival you never quite know where you stand. Are they needling you because they dislike you, or because they like you and will not say so? That open question is powerful. Uncertainty about someone’s feelings tends to keep them in your thoughts far more than a clear answer would.
Banter or real conflict? How to tell
Signs it is chemistry
- You both come back for more: they start as many of the arguments as you do.
- The jibes are about things that do not hurt — your taste in music, your terrible parking — never about who you are.
- You respect each other’s competence, even when neither of you would say so aloud.
- One to one, the edge softens, and they are kinder to you once the audience has gone.
- They remember what you said in the last argument and bring it up weeks later.
- When someone else criticises you, they are the first to stand up for you.
Signs it is just conflict
- There is contempt in it: eye-rolling, sneering, jokes meant to wound. The Gottman Institute, whose researchers have studied couples for decades, counts contempt among the habits most damaging to a relationship.
- It plays to an audience, and you come away feeling smaller.
- Only one of you is enjoying it.
- They dismiss your work rather than argue with it, or talk over you rather than with you.
- Nothing softens when you are alone; if anything it gets worse.
If it is the second kind, there is no slow-burn romance hiding inside it, and no story asks you to put up with being made to feel small. Step back and give your attention to people who make you feel bigger.
If you cannot tell whether the sparring is affection at all, telling flirting from friendliness works the same way with a rival as with anyone else: look at effort and at what happens one to one, not at the jokes.
How to go from sparring to something more
- Drop the act once. Pay them a sincere, specific compliment with no joke attached, and see what they do with it. Complimenting someone you like well is mostly about being specific.
- Find them away from the arena: the coffee after the meeting, the walk to the station after the debate.
- Concede a point. Nothing disarms a rival like “you were right about that”.
- Say it plainly, in private. Rivals rarely go first, because going first feels like losing. Somebody has to, and it may as well be you.
- Give them room to answer. If the reply is another joke, ask once, kindly, what they really think, and believe what they tell you.
When your rival is a colleague, or taken
Many real enemies-to-lovers stories start at work, where rivalry comes with the job. If yours does, think about the practical side before you say anything: whether one of you manages the other, what your workplace expects, and how you would both handle it if the answer were no. Whether to date a coworker covers that ground.
If your rival has a partner, or you do, the spark is still honest, and there is nothing shameful in feeling it. Sparring that tipped into an affair would be cheating, and lying about it would make it worse; the feeling itself wrongs nobody. Saying it out loud now, though, turns a rivalry between two people into a problem for three, and if they are a colleague, a crush on a taken coworker needs particular care. There is a way to say it that does not ask anything of anyone today.
Where IF fits: going first without losing
Between rivals, the hardest move is the first sincere one: the moment you stop scoring points and say what you mean. IF is made for that moment. Whatever your relationship status, and whoever has spent the last year getting under your skin, it lets you tell them honestly what all the sparring was really about, then holds the feeling until the time is right to act on it. No audience, no scoreboard, no smirk to recover from.
- Your rival is single, so are you, and they are already on IF: send a Like. If they accept, a chat opens, and the next argument can happen over dinner.
- One of you has a partner: send an IF, after finding them on Swipe or in Search. It holds up to 250 characters, it is sealed, and it cannot become a conversation before you are both single, which keeps the spark honest and leaves nobody’s relationship touched.
- They have never signed up: an IF can still go, through Search, to the email address, Instagram handle or phone number they gave you. Only the email route sends anything, one brief invitation; the other two stay silent, leaving the IF to wait in case they join.
Rivals tend to write good IFs, because they already know each other’s rhythm: “Fine. You were right about the budget, and about most things. I’ve liked you since our first argument. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Who sent it, and what it says, stays hidden until it is revealed; at most, they may be told an IF is waiting, though a rival who knows your style might guess. The first one costs you nothing. Go first, say it once, and for once in the rivalry, leave them the last word.
Questions people ask
Is enemies to lovers realistic?
The gentle version is. Rivals, sparring partners and people who got off on the wrong foot fall for each other all the time. Genuine hatred turning into love belongs mostly to fiction, and contempt is a poor start for anything.
Why am I attracted to someone who annoys me?
Because annoyance and attraction share a lot of wiring: both keep someone in your head, raise your pulse when they walk in and make you notice everything they do. Often the annoying person is also an equal, and equals are attractive.
How can you tell if a rival secretly likes you?
Watch what happens away from the competition. A rival who likes you seeks you out one to one, softens when nobody is watching, remembers small things you said and defends you to other people. Teasing that never turns cruel is a good sign too.
Can a relationship that started with dislike last?
Yes, if the dislike was really a first impression you both outgrew, and if respect replaced it. What predicts trouble is not how you started but whether contempt is still there now.
If the person who gets under your skin is the one you cannot stop thinking about, tell them, and if the timing is wrong, put it in an IF and call a truce until it is right.