A lot of things do not appear as they look and vice versa, we are humans and one of our abilities is to think. We think about things and make decisions based on our assumptions which might be right or wrong.
The issue of our friends doing things that require a huge amount of money after they appear to be financially unstable is a complicated issue and should be handled carefully. Treating it harshly can make us lose beautiful people in our lives and by the time we realized the truth, it would be too late.
Early this year, I took a loan from Mr Neoxian to support something I have been saving up for quite some time and I only shared it with a few people offline and online. I am certain that if I had told some people about it, they would have called me a pretender because they don't know the background story behind the success of that thing.
The fact remains that I am still not financially stable but out of nothing, I choose to save some pennies that became something after a very long time and using it for something remarkable in my life is all I could think of. It would require me to tell my story before some people who think I am a pretender would understand achieving that thing didn't happen overnight.
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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine texted me on WhatsApp that he had relocated to the United Kingdom with his girlfriend and I was very happy about it, he is a very hardworking guy and deserves a good life.
I wasn't surprised when I got his message neither was I angry at him. There is this mentality of not telling people your plans in Nigeria because they can hinder it so I respect his decision to keep it secret for reasons best known to him.
At the end of our chat, he stated that "We are still close pals and he doesn't want anything to come in between our friendship". He thought I might be pissed but I wasn't because I have zero expectations from even my close pals, nothing surprises me anymore.
This friend of mine is someone we grew up together and I admire him a lot. His family is very much financially okay than mine but he never looked down on me even when our other friends did.
The last time we spoke before he texted me, we were both lamenting about the situation of the country. He complained about being broke and others, although he earn good figures as a banker but I didn't doubt him. I don't see any reason why he would lie to me when it's not like I was asking for help.
There is another friend of ours who got pissed about the news, she called him a pretender. According to her, she sought assistance from him recently to support her business but he claimed to be broke.
I thought about it carefully and asked myself some questions.
What if he was broke?
Broke in the sense that after saving for travelling and keeping some money for his expenditure probably every month, he doesn't have enough left.
What if he was working more than he should to save for the travelling?
I mentioned that he is quite hardworking and must have been working really hard to make the travelling come to reality. There was a time he told me that he sells wines, rents out shisha pots and others. If he was truly financially okay, he probably won't be doing multiple jobs.
Would I have taken out the money to lend a friend?
It is not a smart move to take out of your savings to support a friend, what if he or she doesn't pay back? The money is a substantial amount and it could hinder his plans or cause a big problem for him.
I would have done the same except if the friend is very trustworthy with money.
After thinking about everything, I concluded that he might have been working on this for a long time. It is not like he just woke up that day and said, "I want to go to the UK". The travelling was a success because he committed himself to that dream and it came to reality.
He is not rich but he was determined and saved up till he could make it happen. Moreover, his girlfriend is from a wealthy home. Who knows if she was behind the success of everything, I don't want to assume anything and will keep our friendship as it has always been.
I know our communication won't be as strong as it use to be but once in a while, we will still interact.
We assume a lot of things because we don't have answers and we don't know the story behind our friends' success. Some of them starve to make these things happen so who am I to criticize them after seeing the results of their sacrifice?
I will rather just allow the friendship to continue and keep having the usual zero expectations from everyone.
