Imagine this scenario; you have two friends who fell out and became enemies. They do not get along and bicker back and forth over issues that have nothing to do with you. You are friends with both and knew them separately. Both friendships benefit you and are important. You do not want to get involved in their fight or lose one friend over the other. But this is exactly what these two want. They want you to pick a side.

Every time you are seen hanging out with one friend, the other party gets sad. In fact they confront you or say words such as; ‘anzanuwo ali bwanji? Mumatinena tikudziwa? Munakwera imeneyo eti?’

You are stuck in the middle and feel like you need to choose a side and show loyalty to the one you are closest to.

This is not an isolated scenario. Many people are experiencing this; a situation where they are not free to comment or celebrate someone on social media for fear of being accused by one friend of choosing their enemy.

Now, this is all wrong. Why should you expect a friend to fight your battles over matters that do not concern him/her? You expect someone to just wake up and start hating another person just because they want to show loyalty? How about considering how they feel? As long as their friendship does not revolve around ‘gossiping’ about you, I think it should be fine to let our friends get along with whoever they want, especially when the fall out happens while the friendship is already established.

It is a different ball game when your friend deliberately goes to initiate a friendship with someone they clearly know is your enemy. But then again, friendships are natural. They sometimes happen when you least expect them to. Expecting every friend to align to your feelings when it comes to other people is expecting too much.

Not so long ago, someone told me how she ‘hides’ certain friends and prevent them from viewing her WhatsApp status every time she posts pictures of an outing with certain individuals the other friends deem enemies. Afraid of having to explain, she simply plays hide and seek. How unnecessary!

I think enmity should not be inherited. If you expect all friends to do as you wish when it comes to who thy hang out with, then you are a bully and very controlling. In fact, the next thing is will be dictating who they marry, what they wear and which political party they support. It is not healthy. One needs to understand that friendship does not mean owning each other.

The same happens when two lovers or married partners break up. Their mutual friends always find themselves in an awkward situation of having to pick a side. But why should they pick a side?

It goes as far as monitoring the comments section of their exes to check which common friends are commenting and ‘liking’ their posts and pictures. Later confrontations occur. “Takuonananitu, kodi munakwera imene ija?” Why should your break up affect everyone so much? It is your break up, not everyone else’s. Let’s learn to compartmentalise these issues so that we can let our friends breathe and make their own decisions when it comes to who they are friends with. That friendship we are stopping them from having could be their game changer. Let us be fair! 

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