When two elephants fight...

Culled from: The Human Angle, Vanguard(Lagos) - Nigeria.

E-mail address: humananglepage@yahoo.com

Ever imagined what the ground would look like should two Elephants fight as a saying goes? Not very pretty I think. Then, take this other scenario. Imagine what would happen when things fall apart between two very close women who once did almost everything together. Worse than the joint efforts of two elephants I can bet! How about when two men quarrel?

Is it a fact that the fall out or differences between men are never as deep and disastrous as those between women?

I met these two women at a cousin’s place where they had been summoned to a peace meeting in an attempt to settle the differences between them.

One of the two women, who claimed to be the aggrieved, had come separately before now to state her side of the matter to my cousin.

They were subsequently invited together which coincided with the day I was visiting. Though as an on-looker, I was invited intermittently to express my views, but at the end of the day, we could only advice that they both try to renew their friendship and forget all that had transpired, because my cousin and I were confused and short for words.

Tessa, (39), Civil Servant, is accusing her best friend of envy and betrayal:
I don't have much to say about the whole matter. All I want you to do for me is to warn her to stop chasing after me. I know she is planning some evil or misfortune for me, but my God will not allow her to succeed. She is not my friend. I have noticed this through her behaviour before now, but now, I have confirmed it and I know she is after my life.
If not because of the gift of dreams that God gave me, I might not have been able to detect her plans for me. I believe so much in my dreams because all the important ones have always come true so far. I have seen her three times in separate dreams.
Once, I saw her discussing with people that I don't talk to anymore. She knows I don't, and I have told her to steer clear of them if she wants to remain my friend. So, if she is my friend, why was she with my enemies in my dream.
The second time, she was chasing me with a stick and shouting my name. I don't know what she said I did to her in the dream, but I saw myself running away from her. The third time, we were fighting each other. And when I fight with someone in my dream, it is a bad omen.
That is why I have come to report her to you. In fact, when I heard that you have come to Nigeria on holidays, I was very happy because I don't want you to hear about our quarrel in America. It is because you are very fond of her that I have come to report this case to you. If it were to be someone else that is doing what she is doing to me, I know what I would do to the person.
Please don't be annoyed, you must take things easy. What is the actual problem, what is her offence? I asked.
Thank you Aunty, you too can help us judge this matter, after all, you are a woman. We have been good friends now for almost five years, at least, since they moved to this neighbourhood. We do things together and everyone knows we are good friends.
Your sister can attest to this. I loved her like a sister and I believe she loved me too. But her behaviour of recent times have opened my eyes to the fact that she is not a true friend after all. She has not been as loyal with me as I have been with her. There is nothing I have not done to show her how much I love her, but she still goes around stabbing me in the back everywhere I turn.
Please, ask her if I have not allowed my boyfriend to make love with me in her presence before. We took her out with us and made love in the same room with her. What more can I do for my friend? My secrets are with her, I have hidden nothing from her. Maybe this is why she is behaving like this with me.
It is my house which is still under construction that has caused all this problems oh. She is jealous of my success. You can't believe that as close as we claim to be, she does not know the site of the house I am building in my home town.
Last year, when we went to lay the foundation for the construction, we had a small service and light entertainment for the guests. I didn't even know that people do this sort of thing before then. It was suggested to me by some friends at my office.
They said I must do it that it is like committing the project into God's hands. When I informed her, she too agreed that it was a good idea. But you can't believe that she did not help me with the preparations at all.
On the said day, my best friend did not show up until late in the evening when the whole thing was almost over and many of the guests had left. She stayed up for sometime and later demanded for a bed to sleep. Her excuse was that she had a rough time with her car on the way to my home town as she didn't have a driver. The next day, she didn't even bother to ask me to take her to the location until she left. Up till today, ask my friend if she knows the place.
Is it my fault that she doesn't have money to build a house of her own? Or is it my fault that she doesn't have enough boyfriends to attend to her needs? I have four boyfriends right now and she knows all of them. One of them is an Oba, though of a small town in Epe, Lagos state.
She complained that she did not like my relationship with him. Ok, now that I think of it, maybe this was actually where the problems started. She calls him Oba jegejege, but I know that even if he is not a first class Oba or very rich, he has the name and personality to command respect. Even in his so-called wretchedness according to her, oh, I know the things I have gained through his assistance. As regards the house I am building, he has assisted me with several Tippers of gravel and sand. 
That is not to mention the people I have been opportune to meet through him.
It is things like these that I have been telling her that she should be looking for in relationships.
But she will never listen.
She loves going out with men who are not worth the bother. Many of them don't even give her anything tangible, instead, she spends her own money on them. Whenever I ask that we buy something together, she will always have one excuse or another.
The standard one is that she has no money. How can she have money when all her money goes into irrelevant ventures? How much can she make from a boutique, or how much can her husband give her?
I have tried to fix her up with better men, but they never like her. Is that my fault? She doesn't have the luck for men like I have. Ask her if it is a lie. Once, Kabiyesi threw a party. I invited her with three other friends who wanted boyfriends. Everyone of them caught a man friend each, but my friend did not find any suitable man. Am I to blame for that?
She doesn't know that I have spies in her shop who give me full details of what she does there. She has a new boyfriend who has entered her system, so she can't reason properly anymore.
I was told by my spies that they were discussing my affairs at the boutique over a bottle of Stout. Can you imagine? Maybe she was drunk then, because I still find it difficult to believe.
All I want is that, you should warn her for me. If she wants to go her own way, let her do so without going around to spoil my name. I know that I am not so lucky when it comes to having a loving and caring husband. But I am grateful to God for giving me the luck to have the love of my boyfriends. They swarm around me like bees and I am only trying to do her a favour. If she doesn't want it anymore, she can go. This is my own side of the story.

Bianca, (36), Business woman, refuted her friend’s allegations and insists she is only protecting her home:

She began her presentation, stating her side of the problem.

Contrary to what she has said, the whole problem started the day my husband and I met her at a party with one of her lovers. We had both planned to attend the party together, but along the line, other things came up and I had to go somewhere with my husband first, on that same day.

We therefore decided to meet there later in the day. Please ask her if she told me that she would be attending the party with a friend?
In fact, she shouldn’t have gone there with someone at all. You see, the people hosting this party were family friends to both our families. They used to live in our neighborhood until a few months back when they parked to their own house. Common sense ought to have informed her that we were bound to meet people who would know us at such a gathering, including people from the neighborhood. So, I never expected any funny games from her.
As I said, my husband and I had to attend an impromptu meeting somewhere earlier in the day. Our plan had been to return home from our outing, then, I could attend those people’s party later in the day.
But when we could not leave the meeting on time for what we agreed on earlier, my husband decided we should attend the party together. I never planned that we should spend such a long time at the place, so everything that happened was not under my control.
And so, when my husband suggested that we both  make a stop over at the party together since they were his friends too, I didn’t know how to turn him down.
Moreover, I had make him to understand that it was a must that I should be at the party, even if it was for just a few minutes. So, it was a surprise when we got to the party and I saw her in the company of one of her boyfriends.
As soon as I saw them, I knew it would be dangerous to share the same table with them because anything can happen. I did not want my husband suspecting her of any hanky-panky, so I led my husband to another area of the party to seat with some other friends. Even despite this, my husband and I went over to greet them and I also went to her on two other occasions.

What more could I have done under the circumstance? If she had informed me earlier that she was planning to leave her matrimonial home, then I would have known what to do and even helped her to hasten things up.

And please, help me tell her, if that is her plans, I have no plans to leave my own family and so cannot do something as foolishly bold as bringing my lover to a party that I know many familiar faces will attend.

Even when my husband asked me if she was with the man beside her, I told him I didn’t know the man, but only greeted him because I saw him at their table.

I believe I did all I did with sincerity, honesty and love for my friend and was trying to protect her. If we sat at the same table, there was no way my husband would not have discovered the identity of the man, and you can imagine the type of problem we will all be in right now.

Again, if he discovered that I knew the man, there was no way he would not conclude that I am engaged in a similar activity since we are supposed to be best of friends. I don’t think I could have done any better than I did, given the circumstance.

But my actions annoyed her and this I believe is the cause of the whole problem. Since then, she has been behaving funny towards me.

The following evening, she came to my shop and accused me of putting her down in front of her our other friends. That they all complained that I neglected them and behaved like I was superior to them. She wanted to know why my husband had to accompany me to the party without her being aware of my plans. She accused me of trying to behave like a saint.

I must confess that I was very surprised because such a thing had never crossed my mind. I tried to explain what happened to her and I thought she understood. But I made a mistake.

From then on, she stopped coming to my shop to spend time with me like she used to whenever I am around. She just began displaying all sorts of characters I had never imagine her capable of.

Prior to this, she used to inform me about all her activities. In fact, sometimes when they bring things for sale in her office, she will buy for me and collect her money later because she always insists on our using the same or similar things for outings. At times when I have goods for sale, she takes them to her office for me too. But this changed after the incident.

I started seeing things on her that I had never seen before, nor had any idea that she had. When I ask, she would always have an excuse or explanation for it. It was either sold to her at the office or a gift from one of her lovers or friend that I did not know, which is quite unusual.

I realised that she was actually trying to sideline me, so I took it in my stride too. This was when I started doing some things secretly. Ask her if it is a lie that I did not accuse her several times about these things. She wouldn’t talk about that now, would she?

I really don’t have much to say about all these. In fact, I feel ashamed coming here to discuss this sort of thing, especially in the presence of a stranger. But as she said, you are a woman and ought to understand some of these things.

I would never have raised this issue but for the fact she came to report me. I am not quarreling with her. And that is my own case. However, before I round up, I must touch on some of the issues she raised.

She claims that she has given me boyfriends and that it is not her fault that I don’t have enough. Well, I know that I don’t have many, but it is not because they don’t approach me. It is because I don’t want them and I have not complained about the few that I have.

I believe that one good man is better than several irresponsible men. I just can’t start going out with any man unless I like him. For me, it is not just for the money, there should be some degree of likeness in it, otherwise, one will not be better than a prostitute soliciting customers in a hotel. Moreover, how many men will I go out with at the same time?

Ask her if I have not introduced some men to her in the past too. At least, I can mention names of some men she met through me. How many times do I go about telling people that I introduced someone to her? Of what benefit will that be to our friendship?

She is the one that is jealous of me. I have known this for years now, yet, I have accommodated all her excesses. Whenever I have a new friend, I mean female friends oh, who come to visit, she will always go cold. If she sees me going out with anyone besides her, then, I am in trouble. She would nag and find fault with them.