I'm Not Here to Make Friends

"...I'm here to win."

—At least one contestant per season on every Reality Show Competition ever.^[1]

"We're not here to make friends. We're here to become celebrities, remember?"

Along with reminding people that they're in a competition, contestants on competitive reality shows also like to remind their fellow contestants that they did not come on the show to make friends (or further their acting career. But that's a different issue entirely.) Well, that makes sense. When you're trying to win a large sum of money or the love of a D-list celebrity, it's not exactly a good idea to be all buddy-buddy with your competition (unless you plan on backstabbing them later) and not focus on your own performance.

Still, seeing how often this line comes up, you have to wonder whether or not the crew members of most shows are actually feeding this line to the contestants. Either way, such characters tend to be prone to catfights.

An NPR segment (9/12/2009) on this trope shows that studios do feed this line sometimes. The segment also shows that the person/people who actually uses the line never wins — perhaps not surprisingly, as it tends to signpost them quite clearly as an arrogant douche bag who, unless they can really win the audience over, is likely to be at risk of being voted off before long. Especially in a social game show, fellow contestants have to like you, or at least respect you as a Worthy Opponent if you want to actually get further. There is also an implication that the contestant thinks they can win the contest all by themselves...and you know what people think of those kinds of folks. Everyone ultimately might be there to win, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to actually broadcast it.

It can be argued that this trope is an applied form of the GIFT - as it has been written by Reality TV columnists, many people who enter games with this attitude do not actually act like this in real life. They decide that the end justifies the means, and don't care at all about what others think about them, sometimes. As described below, this attitude is not exclusive to Reality game shows; it's just the origin of the trope. In video games, "Stop Having Fun!" Guys and Scrubs can often take this trope.

Be very careful adding Real Life examples.

Reality Shows

This video features a montage of clips of contestants from various reality shows of uttering this line.
- and another...
Hutch played this archetype on The Joe Schmo Show. The theme sequence gave a two-to-three-word description of each character; Hutch was described as "The Asshole".
Referenced on an episode of Ace Of Cakes. The decorators were designing shoe-shaped cakes that were going to be auctioned off in a charity drive, sparking some friendly rivalry over whose shoe-cake would earn the most. One designer went on a firmly-tongue-in-cheek spiel about how "I'm Not Here To Make Friends, This Is a Competition and I'm Here To Win, and I will throw you Under The Bus..." Leading to another designer asking if they actually talked like that on Reality TV.
The Apprentice: Omarosa.
America's Next Top Model has one contestant every year that says this. They never win... ever.
- Cycle six's Jade is particularly infamous for it, thanks to her furious exclamation of "This is not America's Next Top Best Friend!"
Sometimes, a player who gets rather far averts this - there are some people who come onto reality shows just for the experience and winning is an added bonus if they manage to do so, At the same time though, there are people who know if they take this attitude to the game, there's quite a good chance they'll wind up in second or third leaving behind a trail of angry jurors.
Daryl from WWE Tough Enough was quite vocal about not being there to make friends. Apparently, he didn't make friends with the trainers, either; he was the first contestant to be cut from the show.
- But not before being called out by Al Snow for complaining under his breath when the contestants are asked to do something. When Al tells him that he doesn't take that crap from his ten-year-old son and he sure as hell won't take it from him, you knew his days were numbered.
Hells Kitchen deserves a special mention here. Usually, you will get a chef or two with this attitude, and in fact Elise of Season Nine said this trope title word for word. However, this is a case of Wrong Genre Savvy, as you need to work well with the people on your team to succeed, and host Gordon Ramsay is a huge advocate of The Power of Friendship. In Season Nine, the blue team were all friendly and usually made good services, while the red team was fractured by in-fighting, did more arguing than cooking, and often lost. In other reality shows, saying this phrase makes you a Jerkass; in HK, it's a Violation of Common Sense.
Hugh on Ice Road Truckers "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to make money."
On Season 3 of Beauty and the Geek, Cecile was stupid, disrespectful, and all-around hated by the rest of the contestants. She happened to make it to the final episode because she won competitions a lot and was partnered with Nate, the nicest and most popular contestant. In the last episode (in which all the former contestants were to vote for the pair they wanted to win), Nate actually went around asking people not to vote for his team, because he didn't think Cecile deserved to win anything, despite the fact that he would lose too. Nearly all of them agreed and went with the other team.
Lee on the U.S. version of MasterChef. "It's fantastic that Sharone is going into a pressure test. We're not going for popularity contest, and I'm not here to make friends."
On The Amazing Race 17, Rachel states in an interview "This is not Amazing Friend." She then turns to her partner and says "We're amazing friends."
- In the premiere of The Amazing Race 20, yet another Rachel (of Big Brother infamy) gives this line in her opening interview.
  - The same Rachel proceeded to do what she did in Big Brother...that is cry like a baby, insult everyone's gameplay, express desire to quit nearly every single leg of the race because it's "Too hard", yell at Brendon for antagonizing her (The latter of which isn't as unjustifiable given Brendon's personality!), then wonder why everybody else can't stand her.
- A third Rachel invoked it later in Season 20, and somehow this one managed to win.
The Ur Example of this has to be Richard Hatch, the Magnificent Bastard from the original Survivor, who said the trope word for word. Interestingly, he managed to bring this attitude all the way to a win.
- And amusingly enough, averting this in the more recent seasons can actually reward you with the million. Basically, it's the "Lesser evil" card - and you can see that it helped people like Tom, Natalie (Samoa), and Fabio. Use this to your advantage if you're in the finals with people who play this trope straight - It may be a strategic and physical game, but it's also a social game. Being strategic and dominating means nothing if you're an Arrogant Kung Fu Guy or Entitled Bastard who everybody hates.
- It should also be noted that Richard, in spite of his famous line, did form a genuine friendship with Rudy that he was very careful not to break at the Final Immunity Challenge and that the series' other "negative" winners (Brian and Todd) did something similar or at least pretended to be friends with others. They might not have made friends with everyone, but they made sure to forge bonds with just enough people to get winning votes from them in the end. Russell unfortunately didn't get this memo.
Early in Season 7 of The Next Food Network Star, Penny Davidi uttered this word for word. A few episodes later, she attempted a Wounded Gazelle Gambit by crying to the judges that she couldn't perform well because all the other contestants were just so mean and refusing to be friends with her. If her status as The Scrappy hadn't already been sealed, it certainly was at that point.
Subverted on the second season of Top Chef: Just Desserts. One person pointed out that even though they hadn't come her to make friends, it just sort of happens anyway.
The sixth series of the UK version of The Apprentice had a rare instance of one contestant (Stella English) saying this line - and going on to win the job.
Aaron, a contestant on the UK Big Brother quoted this trope word for word. He certainly didn't make many friends (receiving the most nominations in the series outside of Marcus and Freddie/Halfwit), but went on to win the series!
- However, he didn't totally stay true to his word. He made a close friend in Mark, and found a romantic partner in Faye.
Lampshaded by Erica in her cast video for "The Glass House". she says, "I'm here to make friends - I know, weird for a Reality Show, right?"

Film

Violet Beauregarde in the 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She doesn't actually say the line, but she still has this attitude about winning the factory.

Literature

Those businesspeople that aren't with the looters in Atlas Shrugged repeatedly state some form of that they don't care about the public good—they're running a business.

Live Action TV (Non-Reality)

In a Thirty Rock episode, Liz tried to get someone else to take a fall for her while a trashy reality show played in the background. At one point, both she and a contestant on the show said "I didn't come here to make friends! I came here to be number one!" in unison.
At the start of Season 4 on House, while House was using reality show formats to recruit his new team, Amber immediately fell into this role.
Spoken in the 1984 dramatisation of the cricket Bodyline controversy by Douglas Jardine.
The premiere of the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine introduces two new characters - Subcommnder T'Rul from the Romulan Empire and Michael Eddington of Starfleet Security. When Commander Sisko tries to make introductions to his senior staff, T'Rul cuts him off by stating that she already knows everyone's names and then states specifically "I'm not here to make friends." Eddington then turns around and says that he is there to make friends and introduces himself, an irony as he turned out to be a spy for the Maquis resistance movement.

Radio

Discussed on This American Life. Listen here.

Video Games

Take a game online. Any game. You haven't seen as many people say "I'm not here to make friends" as you would have on say, a reality game show, but this is more or less the mentality of everyone online. They're not there to make friends - they're there to win. Suffice to say, it really really REALLY shows, Big time.
Any "Pro" or "hardcore" gaming environment. Seriously. They are not there to just have fun and make friends, they're there to compete for trophies. Let's just say, there's a reason that people who don't give a shit about trophies, statistics, ratios, etc are the ones who have the most fun.
PvP games tend to suffer from this a lot. Most people online have the thought process of, "I'm not here to make friends - I'm here to kill other players."
Even in PvE areas... "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here for loot."
And in Sandbox Mode areas... "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to build." But this is often averted; since some Sandbox games like Second Life happen to be all about the social aspect.
- Especially since if you're not there to make friends, good luck finding anyone to let you build on their land, server, area, whatever.
Inverted in Left 4 Dead, a game which is all about making Fire-Forged Friends. Four strangers are thrown into a Zombie Apocalypse, where they must cooperate or die. In case one of them turns out to be a griefer, there's a fairly-effective ban function on hand. Oh, and, the Player Characters don't know each other either.
- In theory. In practice, it's pretty much full of "Stop Having Fun!" Guys and Entitled Bastard players who Rage Quit at the drop of a hat.

Western Animation

Heather of Total Drama Island provides the second page quote.
- Notably a few other contestants, like Leshawna and Duncan, at some point express this thought too. The thing is, they do make friends, even though they still keep their eyes on their goal. Heather is the Designated Villain because this is all she cares about.
- She even won Total Drama World Tour (technically) when she actually had to rely on friends!
- Scott in Revenge of the Island is as bad as Heather, if not worse; he resorts to intentionally throwing challanges to force his team into elimination ceremonies, then convince his teammates to vote for someone other than him off the island.
  - Lightning and Jo also show traces of this too. When Zoe's Berserk Button is pressed one too many times, she goes into this, but gets snapped back to reality. Cameron likewise also is a good aversion of this, he's there to make friends.
While not a Reality Show or a parody thereof, this concept is presented as an obstacle in the first episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Twilight Sparkle was sent to Ponyville to oversee festival preparations and to make friends. However, she makes it clear quickly that her priorities are overseeing the festival and researching the prophecy of doom she found; friendship just isn't a priority for her. Too bad no one told her the title of the show. She learns her lesson eventually.

Web Comics

Chainsawsuit shows the wrong reality show to say this on.

Real Life

Please do not add examples of specific people, just cases in general. Most of the editors of All The Tropes are here to make friends - or, at least, not make enemies.

Jaison in Survivor mentioned that people like this happen in real life, there's that one person in every workspace who pretty much thinks, "I'm not here to make friends - I'm here to get the job done". He also proceeds to mention that this person is pretty much disliked or only tolerated, whereas the people like Natalie who were there to make friends are the ones who're invited to get-togethers and parties. While he certainly is right in that these people certainly exist in every workspace, there are also aversions who fit into both categories; people who aren't necessarily there to make friends, but they do want to get the job done because they feel if they can at least identify with their coworkers, they can get the job better. Or people who make friends simply because they work better with friends.
Competitive gaming of any kinds. Such as little league - there's almost always that person who thinks, "I'm not here to make friends - I'm here to play ball."
- TCGs. "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to play cards."
  - And in the case of competitive gambling (eg poker), it's "I'm not here to make friends - I'm here for money." Normally, Slot tournaments avert this, because a lot of the time they're just there to advertise the casino in question and the people who're there are pretty much there to have fun anyways.
As mentioned, Serious Business is practically a sister trope to this. Make something Serious Business, and then you get these people crawling out of the woodwork left and right.

↑ They rarely win.

[1] They rarely win.

[1]