You may have heard the saying that your network is your net worth. This may or may not be true. However, let’s rub our minds together to perhaps arrive at a near-logical conclusion.
Friendship is a blessing, and it must be appreciated. Friends usually see the true self of an individual, and sometimes, friends get to know things we may be careful about disclosing to those we are in relationships with. I have many friends—in fact, thousands of friends. I am aware we are friends by virtue of some circumstances or gains between both parties. However, when the gold is tested on fire, only a very few of my acclaimed friends will come out refined. Friendships are usually built over time, and in a good number of cases, there would have been fights at the onset or along the way, which in most cases would either strengthen the bond or tear it apart completely.
Real friends are thus tested and trusted over time. This brings me down to breaking my thousands of friends into acquaintances, past friends, friends of circumstances, distant friends, and now, close friends. I have had a best friend who is a lady since 2010, and yeah, she is happily married (do not ask me why I did not marry her or why I am unmarried). And I have a friend, Rilwan, with whom we have almost seen ourselves as brothers right from 2009, when I entered college, even though he is in faraway Lagos (about 4–5 hours drive from Ilorin) and other close friends like Dr. Olujitan and Dr. Oladepo. These few friends of mine are the closest in my life right now.
There’s no doubt that there are other friends that, by virtue of their complexity, I cannot mention their names (they are either far away, or those I rarely communicate with, or may be close to me in distance but not yet tested over time), but I know they will come through for me when the bricks are down, and equally as a selfless individual, I’m up for strangers, and close friends will not be an exception.
As it stands, most of my circle of friends is connected, and two of them are medical doctors who do not mind leaving the country for a greener pasture. I can say that we are comfortable and thankful with our little achievements at this stage of our lives, even though there’s a desire for a more comfortable life, which we are independently working towards and ensuring nobody is lagging behind. These are friends that could take loans on my behalf when the need is urgent, and vice versa.
A wider expansion of my social networks are my elementary and high school colleagues, with whom, though we are not in close relationships, we look out for one another. We have a WhatsApp platform for each of the primary and secondary schools. Just yesterday, a primary schoolmate called me and encouraged me to reach out to other colleagues who are more well-to-do and connected to indicate on the platform whenever job openings are available so as to help those that are yet to be settled. He also informed me that a classmate of ours was on admission at the tertiary health institution, which I hope to investigate further and bring to the attention of others if the sick colleague would not mind. This is our little way of looking out for one another in health and in wealth.
I will not fail to mention some wonderful friends I have made here on hive, such as 
Thank you for reading. I would love to have your comments and contributions. 🤗
