Ephrem Endale Contributer
“I’m on your side.” Just like that! The guy drops out of nowhere and…what was that he said?
“I beg your pardon….”
“I said I’m on your side.” The guy’s serious, isn’t he? No the prank thug they are abusing so much these days!
“What side? What the hell are you talking about?” For all you know you haven’t been Into anything which calls for taking sides for as far back as you can go down the memory lane.
“I was told that you had a falling out with one of your best friends.” Oh no! No! No! What’s going on here! Whoever is trying to make an issue out of that incident won’t probably go anywhere near Heaven. I’ll make sure of that! Yes, I will. Don’t think I’m praying for nothing; hmm… What’s getting into people these days! They call a very minor every-day incident some fallout! All this time you thought it was a little misunderstanding that happens between friends now and then and now they have elevated it to a falling out!
“Who said we’ve any fall out?”
“Well they told me that was what he was saying.” What! This can’t be happening. Now sometimes emotions push us dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Watch out! You’re about to conclude something just by listening to what some fellow is telling you; and nothing would be more dangerous. Many relationships have fallen on the wayside because spur-of-the-moment actions. Now this guy’s telling you something he said he heard and he isn’t first hand witness.
Are our social interactions these days really changing negatively as much as we think they are? Well that’s difficult, wouldn’t you say? I’ll tell you why I brought this issue up. Almost exactly the same scenario took place recently. It was between a guy and his fiancé-in waiting. Someone goes and tells her that her guy was saying all things about her. The vilest thing of it all was that the person has been studying some darker corners of her life she thought no one knew, except her guy. But this guy brings it up and tells her many people heard the story from her guy. Now the sad thing here is there was absolutely nothing whatsoever that would take the two of them this far into disagreement or anything near to that. I can tell you the guy who is one soul fast approaching middle age was a complete wreck hearing what has been going on. The devilish thing of this gossip was that he said not a word to anybody concerning his fiancé or their relationships! She to being in her mid-thirties should have known better. I mean if age doesn’t teach you to try to see all sides of the issue before you decide anything what would.
Very unfortunate that she took what she was told in its entirety. She didn’t try to go a little deeper into the hows and whys or pick up the phone, call her and ask him what the hell he was doing dragging her name all over town. She didn’t do that. A couple of days later the word was out that the whole thing was a carefully planned mission to get back at her guy over something only the parties involved are aware of. Attempts to bring her back her senses have so far failed. She would have none of it. In fact she is so hurt deep inside she is telling the peacemakers not to raise the issue ever or risk losing her friendship. The case is still on. But at the risk of jumping into the pool without noticing the sharks I can tell you all the signs are it was a lost case. She has started seeing another person!
Look, you might say such things happen day-to-day and there was nothing to be surprised about what was said earlier. But this is not about single cases. This is not only about soon-to-be–married couples splitting. It’s about some very destructive trend. Of course such things should have remained strictly personal business. The more noses poking in the uglier things get. That’s what’s happening in the case I told you about.
I must have told you about this. In the old days there was this woman in one of the older hamlets in the city who was rumored to be a sorcerer. The stories flung around were so well crafted and articulated even the most rational of people would say “And I thought she was the sweetest woman in this village!” After she passes away you’d have thought her teenage daughter who tried her best to keep her distance from all the mess would have it good; for a time that was what happened. But not for long; the rumors started circulating that she had inherited not only her mother’s broken furniture but her ‘craft’ too. (That, too, must be some sort of craft, wouldn’t you say? I mean this sorcery thing. But the girl acted fast and left the village and went to the edges of the city. The last heard about her was that she relocated across the ocean, married and has children. Had she remained in the village I can tell you she would have got things worse than her mother did. She just couldn’t have stood it. No one ever produced her mother was really what they claimed she was; not the slightest of signs!
Now we seem to be talking about these things over and again. Because these days be it in politics, commerce, academia or you name it in almost every sector of life such things are more visible than most of us would have liked to admit. And the scary part is that rumors just don’t start and spread just like that. We hear they are well thought out with detailed execution blueprint. And I’m not talking about the social media here. I’m talking about what actually is happening it the places we live, work and what have you.
Of course in comparison with the population those involved in such behaviors might not be that many. But it is not about only numbers. It is the offence they bring on people and their families. And as I told you when all those highly educated and supposedly rational people get involved in such primitive destructive behaviors like rumor-mongering you know that we really are in tough waters.
It’s sad; but there are many who use gossip-mongering as a weapon!
The Ethiopian Herald 14 August 2022