My Dearest Friends: An Open Letter To My Opps

I have always had friends who hate each other. It’s part of the brand. In 2022, when I was 16, New York City existed in a sexual bottleneck, where everyone was schtupping each other’s boyfriends, brothers, and rabbis. Almost all of my friends hated each other.

Once upon a time, there existed two girls, sisters in all but blood. We will call them Aphrodite and Hera, after the Greek goddesses of seduction and marital rage, respectively. It’s almost funny to think of either in that respect now, since they’re both mature and full of grace, the world of war just a hazy, small town in the rearview mirror. But it wasn’t always so.

The two became best friends late in ninth grade. None of us attended the same school, but I was introduced to both by the third member of their trio, a close friend and classmate of mine.

For many years, Hera dated Zeus, who had previously been with her former best friend, before she decided to claim Zeus as her own.

Shortly before Hera and Aphrodite became friends, Zeus – unbeknownst to his girlfriend, Hera – invited Aphrodite to chill with him one-on-one at Mt. Olympus. When he did so, Zeus told Aphrodite that he and Hera had broken up, and Aphrodite did not discover this was false until she became friends with Hera herself. She decided not to tell her new friend because she did not want her to be hurt. However, this was in vain — Aphrodite’s best friend was herself visiting Mt. Olympus with the Athenians’ most popular teenage dealer of nepenthes.

He told his good friend, Hera. Obviously. That sort of thing tends to happen.

Though now half-broken up with Zeus, Hera was absolutely furious. Her rage was Mesopotamian.

“Wow,” I remember thinking, “Now I understand how those people in Pompeii must’ve felt.”

Euphoria’s second season aired that winter, where Maddy’s boyfriend, Nate, slept with Maddy’s best friend, Cassie. When Maddy discovers it: “You’re crying? You fucked my ex, and you’re fucking crying? … You dumb fucking bitch, I’m gonna fuck you up!” It was fresh in all of our minds.

On August 18, 2022, around 9:30 P.M., Aphrodite posted an edit of herself and Hera in front of a raging fire with the words: “FIGHT NIGHT. where? Delphi” — this is not the real name of the establishment — “when? saturday at 8. bring ur cameras. LET’S GET ROWDYYYYY.” Delphi, of course, was a tiny Thai restaurant near NYU that would serve a 5-year-old shots if he had a credit card. It was the social hotspot of New York’s alcoholic teenagers, known for their sweet deals, such as a $16 gallon-pitcher of margarita or five shots of vodka for $3.50.

I reached out to both goddesses for comment and arranged a joint interview. This would be their first time addressing the conflict, ever.

“This is not normal, Ari,” Aphrodite reminded me when I began my joint interview with her and Hera. “Hera said she wanted to rip my head off, as she should’ve, and I remember at one point hearing that fifteen vigilantes would come jump me on her behalf,” Aphrodite said.

Hera responded, “I was sad when I found out, but when I was younger, I’d get so angry when I was sad. At the time, I felt like so many people were hurting me because of Zeus, and I was exhausted.”

When reached for comment regarding the Hellenic-scale war caused by his penis, Zeus said, “i’m glad i created opps, because opps help us to grow. i’ve grown too. i have regrets, but let’s just say i had a good time ;).”

The only Trojan war where nobody used a Trojan.

Fight Night at Delphi inspired me. Delphi itself was a deeply trashy place before being shut down for underage drinking. I wanted a similar event…so I announced that I would be throwing an “Autumnal Brunch with Mimosas.” 13 girls (intentionally an unlucky number) would be invited, all of whom hated each other. #4 on the list had slept with the boyfriends of #1, #2, #6, #8, and #10. #13 had leaked that #4 had done this to #1. #4 and #13 also hated #12 for some reason I don’t remember. #5 also hated #4, and #3 was best friends with #8, who was best friends with #2, who hated #6. Everyone hated #9, except #9. She also slept with the boyfriends of #8, #2, and #6, and told people that she slept with the boyfriend of #1, but in fact had not. #11 just liked to start drama, as did I, and had beef with #9, #4, and #5.

Reached for comment, #11 said, “Holy shit.”

She continued, “I don’t think Zeus was held accountable for his actions, and at the time, everyone was pressed at Aphrodite, but I don’t think Aphrodite deserved the treatment she was given. Zeus was down and dirty, because he was so hot, and he should’ve been held accountable. I kind of see why Hera wanted to fuck Aphrodite up. I would want to fuck somebody up if they were all up on my man, too.” #11 always saw it from both sides, as did I, when it benefitted me.

In the end, 7 of the 13 had slept with the same two men. In hindsight, I should’ve invited those two men and instructed the girls to throw a cocktail in their faces, not each other’s. Alas.

It would’ve been perfect. But my father shot the idea down as soon as I asked him: “We are not supplying limitless alcohol to teenage girls who hate each other.” Tragic.

***

From pre-kindergarten through third grade, I attended a nun-operated Montessori school, which was located in the basement of a Catholic convent. Yes, I am Jewish. No, that is not the point.

The point is, I encountered a pair of identical twin girls, whom we shall not name but can call Sadie and Katie. I thought that they were beautiful, chaotic, and so mean — therefore deserving of my best friendship. They absolutely were not interested and never feigned to be. I would follow them around from the outdoor sandbox to the mat-rolling classes, and they wanted absolutely nothing to do with me; still, I remained infatuated. Their memory persists like stained glass in my mind, and if there was anything I learned from Our Furious Lady of St. Montessori, it was to constructively and creatively despise others.

Sadie and Katie were my first opps. Obviously, they were very dear to me.

Zeus is right about one thing: the oppships of the past create growth. Despite their dramatic differences years ago, I remained friends with both Aphrodite and Hera throughout high school. It is almost incomprehensible that either would engage in something as volatile, melodramatic, or antagonizing today. I have seen them both mature into such wonderful friends and women, and that is part of what oppship does. It teaches you which situations hurt you or tie you into a frenzied spectacle of Shakespearean proportions. “If you never bleed, you’re never going to grow,” as Taylor Swift once said, and sometimes, the opps are going to give you that flesh wound.

***

It was of no surprise to anyone that, as high school graduation approached, I was awarded “Most Likely to Win an Argument With A Teacher.”

I have had various opps throughout my life. I would like to tell you a story about one of my favorite high school teachers, let’s call her Malinda (at my high school, we called our teachers by their first names. Don’t blame me, I am a victim of progressive education). For some odd reason, I always used to ask her if she was Amish, and according to Google, Malinda is an Amish name — plus, it sounds like Glinda (née Galinda) from Wicked.

In my senior year, Malinda was my teacher in third period. On the first day of school, we received a land acknowledgement in all our classes stating that our school was located on stolen Lenni Lenape land, so I raised my hand to ask Malinda: Will we be returning the land? Will we be paying the modern-day Lenape reparations for the real estate value of the school grounds? Would we be offering guaranteed admission or honorary degrees?

It was 9 in the morning on a Monday, and the entire classroom was undercaffeinated; nobody wanted to be there. My closest friend in the class was my best friend (she was my best friend in that class; I have many, still at an extraterrestrial level of stoned, from her pre-class pre-roll). Malinda was doing her best to teach us about her AP subject, for which some of us (me) were not prepared to be examined upon in May.

From that day on, Malinda and I oscillated between I-behaved-appropriately and oppship throughout that year. It didn’t end well, though. Second semester of senior year, when I was taking an exam in a different class, Malinda entered the classroom and began speaking above a whisper to our teacher. I called out to her and asked her to use her “inside voice.” Presumably taken aback by my called-for-but-still-disrespectful behavior, she snapped at me. I visited her afterwards and snapped at her – I just told my mom what I said, and she suggested that I not share it here. My classmate said that I “ate her up.”

Then something unexpected happened, given that she was the teacher and I was the student. She apologized to me the next day. Then, as now, I was a bit stunned that she did so. Why? I didn’t have more than a middle school degree at the time. Who was I to critique an adult’s behavior? Yes, it helped build my well-deserved legendary status among my classmates. But it felt wrong.

I learned an important lesson from that face-off-with-an-opp: Respect people who deserve your respect, even if you think you’re right, and now you can eat them up with your quick wit and sharp tongue.

On the last day of school, I told Malinda how much I would miss her and how much it meant to me to have been her student. We both cried.

Because I am now a journalist, I reached out to Malinda to see if she would let me interview her about the history of our relationship, but she politely declined.

But Malinda, I hope you read this. I miss you so much! Thank you for showing me your merciful patience and helping me to grow.

***

Recently, a regular reader of this Substack — my best friend, Sasha — reached out with a brilliant idea: that I should interview my opps. You do not need to attend Yale (though Sasha does) to see the greatness of this idea. A regular feature on opps! Ari interviews the people who thought they loathed him until they realized that the feeling they felt was actually love – a complicated and reciprocal emotional bond.

So I asked Malinda. We all know that was a no.

I then asked my freshman year roommate from my dorm, New North. Unfortunately, he has also declined to comment for now. If any of my beloved readers know my freshman year roommate, please lobby him on my behalf! Let him know that I simply want to learn how he survived being Ari Ehrlich’s freshman-year roommate.

But before I go any further — and further I plan to go — I want to extend an invitation to my opps: Opps, far and wide, if you are reading this, please join me for an interview! Consider this a deranged olive branch.

***

The joint interview with Hera and Aphrodite was their first-ever attempt at reconciliation, in the near-four years since the onset of this saga.

Aphrodite said she was relieved to reconnect with Hera, and was grateful for her forgiveness. And though she is sorry for hurting Hera, she is not precisely sorry it happened. “There’s a weird part of me that knows I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t make that mistake and get called out for it,” she said. “It was the most rapid period of growth and transformation in my life.”

Hera said that even when she was feeling angry and hurt, she missed her friendship with Aphrodite. She also now knows that Aphrodite didn’t intend to betray her, and that is was Zeus who was the real opp. “You were one of many, many girls,” she said to Aphrodite, “and I’m just glad that I found out.”

As for me, I am just patting myself on the back for brokering this peace. I can’t wait to get involved in some fresh drama with a whole new set of opps.