Posted by BY J E SOLOMON
There’s something special about true friendship that makes one’s heart leap with excitement. It’s the simplicity, beauty and joy of it that only those in it experience. With true friends there’s always that feeling of confidence and the strength of mind that make you do or say things that other people dare not do or say. It comes with knowing the hearts and minds of your true friends, intimate friends for that matter.
A recent incident reminds me of the power of true friendship, the kind of friendship that harbors no fear, guilt feelings or regrets for any audacious but friendly mischief. A female friend met a former male classmate she hadn’t seen for some time. Both are now mature adults in their forties. Surprised that the male friend had developed a conspicuous pot-belly, the lady went closer to him and put her ear against the belly ostensibly to check for a baby’s heart beat, inferring that the guy was pregnant.
This happened in full glare of some by-standers. You may think this seemingly embarrassing act would have upset the gentleman. No, not at all, the gentleman only laughed it off. The funniest part of it all was that another friend caught the teasing on camera and with audacity, put the image on the web without thinking of any injury to the sensitivity of their former classmate. Yet, no bad blood brewed out of these playful acts of double mischief. Things like these could only happen in truly open-hearted friendly relationships in which doubts and fears don’t exist.
Some people are naturally inclined to be jovial. They’re ready for any jokes. For some people, it’s a complete no-no to take even the slightest teasing from close friends.
In my early youth growing up at Adabraka in Accra, Ghana, I developed a crazy interest in April Fool pranks with an uncanny ability to easily deceive my targeted victims. I did it consistently year after year and still managed to fool some of the same people. I would spend about three months securing and preparing the materials needed for the pranks. Provisions like Exeter Corned beef, sardines, Peak Milk, Carnation Milk, toilet soaps like Lux, Rexona, Palmolive, Asepso, among others, were items I would buy and use, but would cleverly open the canned items not from the top as anybody would do. The canned milk typically had designated sites to enable consumers to punch holes at the top to empty the contents. Instead, I opened them from the bottom. I would also remove the toilet soaps and sometimes chocolate bars from their wrappers with the utmost care to avoid mutilating them.
Only God knew the amount of effort and skill with which I managed to refill the empty cans and wrappers to hide any suspicions about their contents not being the real stuff. It was fun, a lot of fun. Unfortunately, one victim thought it was an unforgivable prank I played on him. He was much older than all of my close friends in the neighborhood. I was lucky to have been out of the house when he allegedly charged into our house looking for me. By the time he saw me a day or two later, the venom in his anger had lost its potency. That was divine protection for me.
Somehow, he couldn’t let go of the resentment over that mischief and for years he wouldn’t talk to me. Interestingly, I didn’t stop doing it. I had the support of friends who urged me to keep it up, even though I still fooled a couple of them also. Those friends became middlemen for the delivery of mischievous April Fool gift parcels and misleading messages.
It’s not so much about what is done or said mischievously that hurts, it’s the manner in which the teasing acts are perceived and accepted. If you accept them as they are intended, they will be fun for you and you may even laugh at your own self. However, if you allow your mind to convince you that a teasing was done with malice aforethought (as lawyers would say) then it’s your perception of the mischief that will cause you anger, resentment or even pain.
It takes an open-heart, a free mind and genuine feelings of intimacy to make one dare to try a joke or mischief on a true friend, and equally so, for a true friend to laugh off any such mischief.