It is easier to lose friends these days than making them. I’d have liked to see what some researcher would have come up like “The main reason for men’s friendship to fall apart is adultery.” I’ll tell you how that works; One cheats with the girlfriend of the other one and the other pays in kind. If you think I’m kidding you must be a few years back on the information highway.
For some time such things having happening. If you mess around with the girlfriend of a fellow you know don’t expect him to come with muscle-bound goons to have you beaten up! No, that’s old story.
A sweeter strategy has replaced the ‘your-jaw-in-your-hands punishment. He goes after your girlfriend. And the icing on top of it all is he tells the world he took his revenge! The revenge comes not I the actual physical whatever; it is in telling the world and letting the guy know he wasn’t the smartest dude around. Now, while this is one way of ‘crossing the line’ which brings down friendships it by no means is the only one.
Now, friend or no friend messing with someone’s better half has nothing to do with crossing any line; it’s a dangerous dive from the highest cliff! A few such statements and I’d be ready for being some healer where I give my patients a couple of hard slaps and cure them! Where did I get that? Well, if the few things I saw are anything to go by it’s up to you, the healer, to choose your healing method; after all it’s all about business strategy.
Take my word and no one would raise dust with, “How can you slap patients face purple and still expect to cure them?” No, no one would go that far. If that had been the case many would have been out of business by now. So any healing method wouldn’t be crossing the line. (How did I get into this?)
One sector where you could be accuse of crossing lines even when you don’t know there were any is in the telling of jokes. There were times you threw whatever jokes you though funny all over the place and the crowd took it for what it is. Nobody went for hidden meanings. An empty jar is about a jar that’s empty, and isn’t about someone’s head! As we say now and then we’ve stopped even laughing at ourselves.
Believe me; no laugh could be as satisfying as laughing at you. But then these days it’s very simple to cross lines when trying to be funny. The z advice is if you want to be funny do it among people you trust more; even in that green area the unsuspected pebbles crop up once in a while. You say something which you think is the harmless joke ever to be told and someone changes it into some WMD!
When for one reason or another someone’s an overnight rich guy, or some boss with the power to crack heads the world changes. Yes, it does. People around the person change. Of course, they should… they feel threatened! (You wouldn’t know how an overnight rich guy crosses the line until you’ve seen one!) A bundle of money is scary when it’s not in your pockets. Power is scary when you’re not the one sitting in the leather chair with the power to crack a few heads.
The fresh (and overnight) millionaire who thought any drink other than draught beer is too expensive starts talking of color ‘blue label.’ ‘black label,’ ‘gold label,’ it is later that the likes of you and me understand he wasn’t talking about some paint catalogue but about drinks! So they’ve run out of options and started naming them in colors! What he does is publicly scoff at drinks others drink in a way not directed at the drinks but at the people who rely on them. And for years these same people have been his 27/7 buddies!
“You shouldn’t have said draught drinkers are losers in life.”
“But, they are!”
“You yourself were one of them; in fact nobody managed as much draught as you!”
“That’s ancient story I’ve forgotten about.”
“You know when you did that, you crossed the line.”
“What line?”
“You crossed over it like a steeplechase runner and you ask me what line!”
“You guys never showed me or even told me about any line!”
“No one should. You should have figured it out yourself.”
In our younger days you draw a heart or something and send it through some six seven years-olds. Those kids were wonderful; wouldn’t you say? Yes, being kids if they’re caught red-handed delivering the pieces of paper an angry dad, or a big brother wouldn’t go for their jaws. So, there was no collateral damage. You know some teens learned the hard way that fists are more painful when they are those of secret girlfriend’s big brother.
This, to set the record straight, didn’t come from experience! Hmmm…. Incidentally, never found out how those big brothers could easily find our best kept secrets! The Guy has a hard time to know where Sidist Kilo is while he himself is at Amist Kilo and he still finds out that you’re are smooching his little sister seven kilometers away from where you live! Nature works in weird way followed by another weirder way. So if big brother tattoos his knuckles under your chin you live with it. But then you’re the one who crossed the line! Why didn’t you hunt for a pretty girlfriend who no big or small brothers! It would have made life so easy!
The Ethiopian Herald April 25/2021