Thinking Out Loud

For a while now, I’ve been asking my mom a lot of questions about friendships. I believe I’m too young for the kind of friendship betrayal I’ve been experiencing in life.

In all my years of being my mom’s daughter, I’ve never heard her say this person is my best friend or even seen her introduce someone to me as her best friend. She would always say “my children are my best friends” and I would laugh at her but in my defense, I was really young. Now that I’m old and know how things work in this real world, I understand her one hundred percent.

When I was a kid, my mom used to ask for my opinion anytime she wanted to make decisions and most times, I would say nonsense but she would still find a way to reconstruct my response and implement it. I didn’t understand why she would come to me when she could consult her age mates. “You’re funny”, she would always say anytime I expressed my thought about how she could consult her friends about such things.

As a child, I thought it meant the literal funny but after I grew up, I realized what she really meant. I believe all that she was trying to tell me was that I’m very funny to think people or her friends care about her so much to have her best interest at heart. Of course, your friends could have your best interest at heart until they don’t. Especially if you’re succeeding at things they’ve been failing or going places they’ve been denied access to.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard so called friends poison their friends at parties and it keeps me thinking, so how are they friends? Or maybe I don’t understand the meaning of friendship anymore. There was this particular girl who was found dead in her apartment just a day before the day she was going to relocate to Canada. We later heard she was poisoned by her best friend.

Oh then there was this lady who couldn’t give birth after years of being married. Guess what? After just a year of telling her best friend about it, the best friend got pregnant for her husband. I could go and on about these things but at this point in my life, I’m so careful about what I tell people. You’d be shocked to know how that friend whom you think you have at heart wouldn’t think twice to throw a dagger at you.

Most people are always so quick to celebrate your wins but they only do it because you’re beneath them. I mean they want to see you win and do better but not more than them. You know the funny part? They eventually try their best to spread false news about your success.

If you are a Ghanaian in this boat, channel that energy you use to hate people into the #saynotogalamsey protest. If you’re also the type to broadcast your life, then it’s really funny of you to think people care. Well done and all the best.