One negative and one positive

Some few weeks ago, some of the guys were having this conversation about some girls at the hostel and the many delicious dishes they were always making.

_{Photo by Rishabh Dharmani}

I was there as usual, seated and just listening as the topic slowly diverted towards a guy at the hostel who for some reason was always getting fed by this ladies at the hostel. Whenever they were done cooking, they always made sure to reserve at least a plate of whatever it was they had prepared for him, and he never for once said "No, thank you". I remember looking at him one time and almost being jealous and envious about the whole thing, because at the time, it felt like the guy was living the dream.

Anyways, I remember back then when all of this was happening, another friend of ours had tried warning this friend about the danger of always receiving and not giving back to these ladies, saying that as a man, one should have the pride and self-esteem to know when to say "no thank you" every now and then, something this friend lacked. He was very excited about the generosity of these ladies and was ready to milk it till the end, until one day when he and one of the ladies had had a little dispute, she had insulted him, calling him all sorts of names while dwelling on the part that if wasn't for her, he wouldn't be able to eat.. An insult that ended up hurting the pride and ego I never knew this guy had.

He got really upset but couldn't do anything about it because everything the lady had said was true or at least it looked that way, that was probably the day he got to understand what the Nigerian saying "see finish" meant. It started to look like the lady believed she had some sort of power to insult him because she was always giving him food.

The whole event that day reminded me of my dad and what he would always say about things like this. The man would always warn us (myself and my siblings) never to put ourselves in a position where we won't be able to defend ourselves due to us selling our pride and respect, because unknown to my friend, while he thought he was getting fed by his lady friends, he was exchanging his pride, respect and dignity for a plate of rice and a bowl of soup.

Now, no one is saying he did something run by accepting food from his neighbours, but the moment he made it an habit and showed that he depended on them for him to be fed, it became a problem, that was when he unknowingly gave them the right to be rude to him.

I guess at the end of it all, the saying "too much of everything is bad" still stands here, because if he wasn't saying yes to them all the time and wasn't always accepting their food and making it look like they were his only source of livelihood, all of these insults could have easily been avoided.

Unfortunately, you can only get fed and insulted or not get fed and also not get insulted. You can't always have two positives in situations like this, there is always one negative and one positive.