It happened quite some time back. It was a mixed group of ladies age wise as a couple them well into their forties and the others in their mid and late twenties. Still it was a group of close friends who had some years behind them. Then what starts a lively humor-filled chat suddenly turns sour. The hubby of one of the older ladies wasn’t your high morals poster boy. Being financially with a high paying job one could expect the highest and the purest of moral; but he had this habit of spreading what you might call naked, raw gossip.
You know the types of gossip you get in the ghettos and back alleys of the city. No one ever had the spleen to tell him this was a very bad habit which is giving him a very bad reputation. No one ever challenged him even when he talks about things which everybody knew were not only false but horribly so.
Somehow his name comes up and one of the younger girls tells his wife, as a friend is supposed to do, her hubby’s reputation was being smeared beyond reputation. The wife did not take it quietly. She was so furious she throws some very nasty words which were not supposed to feature it her dictionary at her friend.
The not so-meek not entangled in the political correctness mesh (some would say “mess”) would argue it’s time to really call a spade a spade. Why? I’ll tell you why. Unless we call the spade a spade which it really is we might fall in the danger of running out of spades! What about that! Everywhere else we come across people whose behaviors are unsocial at the least and beastly at the most and we leave them their own ‘trades.’
The past years ours had remained a place where the politicos come and go in all kinds of colors. So bizarre is the whole thing that you’re also forced to ask if and when we’ll ever free ourselves for stone-age thoughts. The extremes are scary. On one end there are those who practically now nothing, absolutely nothing, about politics let alone analyze things that are about politics, or are supposed to be about politics.
The melodramatic part is that mostly such persons fill the air. You see them all over the social media and the mainstream media and feel sad the public had to endure such utter stupidity by people who are in it not for principles but for benefits. You know the likes who wouldn’t hesitate to jump to any side the pay is right.
Many times perhaps tired of to pump sense into those who have anything but sense we just turn our backs.
“Look, we’ve to tell this guy that he’s making a compete fool of himself.”
“What! Why do you think I’d be willing to him or any of those like him?”
“At least they can do their homework before going in front of the camera…”
“Look, sorry for interrupting. To tell you the truth it’s none of my business. For all I care those green aliens can come and carry them to the farthest corner of the universe and I’d still be enjoying my morning coffee.
The mood is that no one believes anyone else and all of us seem to have made our own decision about others Guilt! To be banished to Planet Neptune on the first flight that would be available when science fiction becomes fact.”
You might call it ‘a radical move’ which could herald the demise of your friendship. Well times when friends don’t come that easy losing the ones in your hand is not a very nice thing. That’s when you decode I’ve to put him, in his place. By the way the guy, while a hopeless liar. But that doesn’t mean he is a person who deliberately goes after others to hurt them.
He just wants to put himself on the highest pedestal of society.
“You wouldn’t believe how high commendations the guy has! He knows so much about what goes on in the country and on the world at large.”
Look, calling a spade a spade is not an easy thing to do. At the decision of calling a spade a spade the hard way you’re ready for whatever fights coming your way. “I’m saying that most of the things you’ve been telling me are blatant lies and I’m really tired of the whole thing. You think I’ve been falling for your deceptions? No I haven’t. All this time I’ve tried to just let things the way they are since you’re someone who never changes and in the same mindset for eternity.”
It might sound simple task, simpler than a blink. It isn’t. It is in fact a field carpeted by landmines and the slightest misstep would see you all the way to Lucifer’s front door.
The moment you tell the person “You’re a terrible liar,” you might lose the friendship of his entire family or even his closet friends. Believe me truth seldom gets you the applause you deserve, what you get would probably be hatred of the most foul type.
“I’m sad to say it, but he is a born liar.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this lying habit must have been born with it. “
“Oh is that so! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I didn’t say I’m…”
“It is enough! I’ll tell you that not you, not anybody could call our friend a liar!? Bang! Another friendship melts into the thin air!”
In more ways than one ours is indeed a tolerant society. It seldom tells you in the face, “You’re such a terrible drunkard and foul-mouthed person I feel sorry for your family.”
So let me put a question; “How hard is to tell a person what you actually think about them right in their faces. Is anyone of us ready to tell our closest acquaintances about their unsocial behaviors and advise them to mend their ways or else?” Can I see hands please? I knew it! It appears like the entire audience was born minus hands!
“I think you should …” the following words could do miracles if only we were motivated enough from preventing others from taking themselves to the edge of the cliff.
The Ethiopian Herald may 7/2023