Stage 1: You will cry.

“If not for your brain, do you think I would be your friend?” My supposed best friend said that to me in a large gathering of people who were hell bent on crucifying the newly discovered witch who had squeezed everyone’s brain to add to hers so that she keeps shinning while they remained in her shadows.

What could I have done wrong? I asked myself. My parents are not rich. I didn’t live in a mansion. I didn’t have designer wears. I didn’t even have a clique of friends because I learned self-sufficiency at a very young age, even though I later learnt that we need people to survive in this world. Oh wait, I understand now. It probably was because of Damilare who I learnt I was his first crush in class? But that was not my fault. Can I stop people from liking me? And, it wasn’t my best friend he dated, how come she’s the one hating? I get it. She wanted the favour of the most popular big bullies in the school as I cared less about their existence.

I was 13 years old when this happened, and trust me, I had thought that was what friendships do to you in the end. "No friendship was worth keeping" used to be my mantra until I transferred schools, and I met some really amazing people, but that didn’t last long either. We graduated and distance played a huge role in keeping our communications irregular and wider apart. Till now, I don’t even know where they are.

I had relaxed and decided to trust people moving forward when my childhood friend set me up for attack. Wait, this is what friendships are about these days? I’ll rather do life alone and wait till my knight in shining armor comes for me. Then, he would be my best friend for life. I would just deal with people with much caution, so I mastered the ‘art of running’ from people who tried to be too close to me.

I was wrong, I probably was still in the first stage of making friends.

I realized that the people who really wanted to be my friends are the ones I ran from. After many years of running, I decided to try again, and now I discovered that there are people who really want to be my friends not for whatever they could gain, but, because they just want to be. They are neither selfish nor jealous of me. I have a friend who qualifies as both childhood friend and best friend, and it’s been nothing short of an amazing relationship with her.

Today, I teach my younger brothers first, the signs of a selfish and jealous friend which could involve.

• Suddenly talking down on your achievements even as a joke
• Talking to the people he clearly knows hates you but chose to be friends with them anyways.
• Tries to compare with you instead of learning.
• Hides opportunities from you because he knows you’ll do much better than he could, and he doesn’t want that.
• Never stops others from talking down on you even in your absence.
• Hates to involve you in the process of something huge because he said he doesn’t want to stress you.

The ones who love will do the opposite of the aforementioned, but you may currently be keeping them at arm’s length because you don’t trust them that much yet. It could just be that you need to watch them a little bit closer with an open mind, and you may hit the jackpot of good friendship like I did.

And when you find the good friends, make sure you give to them all that you want in friendship.

All images are mine.