I have always done friendship at my own detriment. I Make sacrifices for my friends and throw myself out there without being cautious of my own safety.
For me, it's all about protecting them from predators and keeping them safe. That is how much love I have for them, even when its not always returned, I still do not mind.
It will not come as a shock to know that I have done more sacrifices for my friends, more than they have done for me, and for everytime I risk myself for their happiness, they always throw it back at my face and make me regret it.
Regardless, I won't stop being selfless when the situation for it arise, and that is why for every bad experiences with one friendship, there are more bad experiences that keeps coming because I'm not stopping lol.
I will share some experiences to further buttress my point.
EXPERIENCE ONE
Back then at Uni, hundred level precisely, I had this girl extend a hand of friendship and I accepted.
We went on to becoming best buds that almost everyone on campus know about our friendship because we were always seen together and also it's a private Uni not much population.
Then another thing is, it is hard for our friendship to go unnoticed because she's very short while I'm tall as she is about my elbow length so when we walk together they always call us tally and shorty lol.
Soon enough, I introduced her to my family and she will always follow me home for weekends.
The first time she followed me home, she pulled a stunt. My parents were having a private conversation in their room and this girl hid behind the curtain eavesdropping and my mother caught her. That made my mother kick against our friendship but I refused to end it and she kept coming to the house despite showing several toxic trait.
Then one day she told me about a court case with her uncle who has hijacked her late father's properties.
During the court proceedings, I was actively involved and followed her with her sister everytime they had a court appearance. At a point, I had involved my uncle who is a lawyer to further intercede on their behalf as they could not sustain their lawyer's legal fee.
When they finally got custody of the documents of their father's properties and businesses, she brought the documents to my house for safe keeping and I had to beg my mom to help keep it safe. I had risked the safety of my family to assist a friend.
We all know how these things with property tussle sometimes involves assasination, but thank God we were safe and it didn't get to that extent.
When she dropped out for school because she could not meet up with her fees, I went to look for her and had to cook up convincing lies to her guardian. I told them she had won a scholarship, so the school management asked me to come inform her to come back to school. She was allowed back in school and there was no scholarship, but I was optimistic and kept encouraging her that a way must be made available for her to finish and it sure did.
To not bore you with too much long story as there are other experiences I would like to share, these and more I did for this girl and guess what? When things improved for her and we graduated, she cut me off because her boyfriend didn't like me so she didn't feel comfortable having me around.
When I noticed how she has restricted contact with me on various social media platforms as I could no longer view her status, I confronted her and she denied blocking me from viewing her status. She did unblock me and I started viewing her status again but after a while she blocked me again.
Then she started saying I should not be texting her at random as her boyfriend has access to her phone and she doesn't want him to know we are still friends. I had to block her everywhere so that we can all rest.
EXPERIENCE TWO
During my National Youth Service Year, I became friends with a female corper from the North.
It is common knowledge that those from the Northern part of Nigeria do have a generous heart and are often timid.
Thus, due to her nature, she was highly taken advantage of by some Corper members from the rest regions and I wasn't having it.
At a point, her roommates started using her things without her permission. They would exhaust her provisions and toiletries and leave her stranded.
She will run to me for assistance and sometimes resort to begging other Corpers for food when I'm not around. I got fed up and spoke some sense into her on how she needs to stand up for herself so people will stop taking advantage of her.
After several words of gingering, it stuck as one day the food she kept for dinner was eaten by one of her roommate so she confrontated the roommate and both roommates ganged up against her and drove her out of the room.
I wasn't around so she called me on the phone to tell me and I called our immediate head (the C.L.O) to intervane or I will call the Local government Inspector (L.G.I)
Not to seem incompetent, the C.L.O got on the matter and she was granted access back to her room but her roomates kept abusing her verbally all through the night and kept telling her how she has grown wings and they know it's me that is giving ber mind. They then told her they don't want to see me in the room again.
We were having Community development service and she came to narrate her ordeal and told me her roommates asked her to tell me that I can no longer visit lol.
Me that use to be a hot coconut head? No problem. Immediately after the CDS, I followed her to her room.
I met her roommates, one was sleeping while the other one was on her phone.
I sat on my friend's corner as we talked about what to cook and just as we were about to start cooking, the one sleeping jumped up and asked me to leave the room that didn't I receive her message?
I responded to her: I did not come to visit you, so you have no right to send me out of a room my friend is an equal occupant of.
My response angered her, so she started dragging and pushing me to leave but I still refused to go and then my friend started crying and said to me Ese please just leave, I do not want any trouble.
Seeing how my friend reacted to the whole confrontation, made me feel like a trouble maker so I turned to leave.
I stepped out and her roomate picked up a slipper, ran after me and started hitting me warning me to stay clear. I got pissed and attacked her back then we fought.
After the fight, I kept my distance and was minding my business. But then, madam roommate wasn't pleased with the beating I gave her so she came with her other roommate to equalize and she carried scissors to cut my hair.
In the struggle, she cut me on my hand and my face and I started bleeding but I still kept dragging the scissors with her so she doesn't cut my hair.
Other corpers came and separated us and they were furious with her actions using scissors on me so they informed the L.G.I.
With few days to passing out of my service year, I saw my efforts flashing before my eyes as the L.G.I started writing a report to the State coordinator.
My parents had to intervene and that resolved the issue at the local level.
Interestingly again, when the whole issue was going on with the L.G.I, my so called friend I was standing up for deserted me as she said she wouldn't want to get involved and have her N.Y.S.C discharged certificate seized by the State coordinator.
That's it folks, my response to the Hive learners prompt the one time we went great lengths to protect or provide for a friend, how it turned out.
Hopefully, I am the only one who has experienced such 😅.
