From the headline: “Il y a beaucoup de faux amis, my French teacher ; Monsieur Faycal Mouhali, should be proud of my steps to becoming bilingual, which is the new norm. The headline simply means there are too many fake friends everywhere. Even in some families, there is no genuine love; some people just attach themselves to you because of what they can get out of you.
People who ought to be there usually end up stabbing each other in the back. The dead are not spared, as friends would gossip during the lying in state or funeral as the case may be.
Come to think of it, gossip, envy, and backstab are not tribal but are heterogeneous individualistic traits. There are a few people who genuinely look out for you; others are simply fake. How can you know who truly loves you? Those who love you would not expect you to pay them back, and if there are any opportunities, they would reach out.
There are the party freaks and goers who would only reach out for parties and never reach out whenever there are opportunities. That is not to say that there are no genuine friends; the percentage is just 0.01 percent. There are still some circles that have very special people.
You graduated with a diploma recently by chance. An unlikely colleague, Mrs. Bolaji Kareem, was the one who shared the information. Trust yours truly to share it too, only to find out that they had the information already. You just noticed that some people, irrespective of tribe, like to hoard information.
The school was done and dusted with, on Thursday, June 27, 2024, the graduation day, you graduated with the hoarders. While you were called to the podium to receive the diploma, you handed your phone to a fellow graduand and friend to capture the epoch moment. What happened? Your fellow graduand handed back the phone and never captured that golden moment. And when asked why, there was no plausible reason.
Naturally, one should be wary of frenemies everywhere, and these sets are usually friendly narcissists. Apologies to the late Imole Mohbad, who experienced frenemies and came up with this hit song:
Plenty enemy (Mohbad)
Wey dey follow me
Májẹ k’ọ mú mí
Even if na dying minute.
As the French people would say, il y a beaucoup de faux amis.
See you next week.