Very Loyal Friends

Very Loyal Friends

Sunday, 21st December
Have you ever liked someone and one day, they do something that makes you like them less? Maybe on the Like Scale from one to ten your like for them was 9. Then they did the deed and it dropped to 8.5 or even 2. Be sincere.

My friend, Temi, is an accountant. I really do love her.  I care a lot about her. I respect her views on a wide gamut of issues. She is intelligent, analytical and critical. I love having intelligent people around me. As a matter of fact, I am an intellectual snob. Yes, I confess. I have the feeling that dumb people are close-minded while open-minded people are intelligent. When I say intelligent, I am not talking about school-intelligent. Most straight A students are the dumbest sort of people I have ever met. They are not versatile. I can’t even hold a conversation with them. They make me want to vomit and fall in my vomit. That bad. If they studied Physics, their intellect is restricted to the confines of Physics. They can’t discuss Marx, Da Vinci or even how Arsenal is going down on the league table.

Temi does not read books aside books pertaining to accounting. She has a Second Class Upper. When I met her, we flowed. We connected. I am a bookwhore (people call me a bookworm. I’d rather be a whore. Who wants to be a worm?) I read indiscriminately. I read everything I lay my hands on. I traveled to visit her. I didn’t take a book. Temi didn’t have any book. The only thing left was for me to read something she had written at a point in her life. I felt she could write very well. I told her. Honestly, Temi is creative. I felt she could dabble into writing. She too saw her potentials. Temi started writing. She opened a blog. Everyone I know has a blog.

I read her first article. I loved it. I didn’t believe she could do that. She outdid herself. She later ‘fessed up to me that she “copied and pasted”. I am no hater. I encouraged her saying it didn’t matter. With time, she would start writing her own words. She got better with time.

Recently, I wrote an article and I wanted her opinion. I sent the link to her. She read it. She told me I sounded “disgruntled”.

Disgruntled.

I had to ask her if she knew the meaning of disgruntled. She told me, “you were complaining. With time you will get better.” She didn’t even see the humor in it. Okay, that article was sarcastic. Sarcasm is the type of humor only intelligent people get. I love criticism. Constructive criticism. Funny thing is other people loved it. They said it cracked them up.

It wasn’t her fault.
It’s my fault for running to show her my article like a child running to show an adult his match-stick drawing. Temi doesn’t read. How would she have known that it is okay when people bitch when they write? Temi has 0% sense of humor. How would she have understood that complaining and bitching is humor? Temi doesn’t even understand the basics of writing. (She thinks anyone that has a blog can write.) I gave her to “see if it’s okay” and all she could tell me was that I was sounding disgruntled.

You won’t believe if I tell you this. A friend of ours, Boluwatife, was in a writing contest. People were asked to read and vote for their favorite story; the winner takes the price. I didn’t know about this competition. Now, Bolu writes very well. I won’t forgive her if she doesn’t publish a book. You have to read one of her short stories. You know what? I will ask her to let me publish one if her stories on this blog. You won’t believe that Temi didn’t vote for Bolu. What was Temi’s reason? “I didn’t want to be biased. I preferred the other story.” Imagine that.

I like her less. Trust me, it wasn’t deliberate. It was a sub-conscious thing. It just dawned on me.  Lately, I am wondering what is wrong with her. We don’t choose our families. We have to accept them as they are and love them, too. However, our friends are different. In our journey through life, we chose these people to share our lives. They should be in our corner supporting us. Cheering us. Telling us we can do it. One of the reasons we have friends is to build a support system. Friends MUST be loyal.

Well, I am a typical human being.  When people do good deeds, we write it on the sand. When they do bad deeds, we engrave it on a rock so that come rain, come shine it will always be there. We are quick to remember bad things people do to us. I think it’s a defense mechanism to prevent us from being hurt again by an incident that hurt us.

Temi is a very loyal friend. She is a very wonderful person. I won’t let this one little slip get in the way of our friendship. Already, I called her out on it. She said she was sorry. Before writing this, I was harboring a little resentment towards her. Now, I am grinning from ear like a Cheshire cat that just got a saucer of milk.

Writing is therapeutic. Whenever I am feeling a negative emotion, I just write. Months later, when I read what I wrote I catch myself laughing and funny enough, it turns out the emotion weren’t worth the stress. It works for me. I don’t like Temi less after all. A woman’s mind is easily swayed.