HOW TO BE A PEOPLE PLEASER - by Light Martins

We lived in a double flat apartment, four of us kind of like a single house with two bedrooms, two people to each room, but sharing the same kitchen and bathroom. We were all girls. At this point in 100L, I had already gotten very comfortable with my roommates. It was still that stage of university where everything felt new, and because I was living with people I was getting to know, our little house slowly became our own small world. My roommate and I especially were very close. We cooked together, did things together and generally just went about university life together. Our second semester exams were fast approaching. I won’t say I was anxious or excited, but I was happy to soon be going home, at least to leave the Abuja heat behind. 😭 I think I was just tired of school at that point and looking forward to that familiar feeling of being home again. But before the semester ended, something had already started changing in our house. My roommate’s boyfriend had basically gone from someone who occasionally visited to someone who was now always around. And because he had decided to start living with us, I started noticing little changes. Very subtle and not loud. Me and my roommate usually used to cook together, but this time around, our foodstuff started finishing quickly. He was barely ever out of the house. The only thing that took him out of our house was when he wanted to have his bath. 😭 And because he was always in our house during the daytime, I slowly started bonding more with my other housemates. It wasn’t something I consciously decided to do. I think I just started spending more time with them because the dynamic between me and my roommate had started changing. And one day, they asked me a very simple question. “Are you okay with this boy living in this house?” I paused for a moment. And honestly? Not really. 😭 Then they asked me, “Have you ever told your friend that you weren’t comfortable with it?” I said no. They told me that as far as I was okay with the situation, they wouldn’t bring it up. And that conversation stayed with me. Because I knew I wasn’t okay with it. I just didn’t know how to say it. So some days later, my roommate wanted to make her hair and I escorted her. I stayed with her in the salon alongside her boyfriend. We talked and laughed and, really though, her boyfriend was a funny guy, talked a lot and all. 😂 So it wasn’t even that I hated the guy. The problem was that he was now practically living in our house. When we got back home, he decided to step out to get something, and finally, I had a chance to be with my friend alone for a moment. And this was the moment I had been avoiding. For a few seconds, I was deliberating on how to let her know that I didn’t like that her boyfriend was staying with us. My heart started beating fast. I started getting anxious. 😭 But then I mustered the courage. I finally decided to tell her that I didn’t like that her boyfriend was living with us. And her first response, I will never forget, was: “Is it removing anything from your body?” 😭😭😭😭😭 She said it and left the room in annoyance and later came back with her babe. Well, when she said it, I didn’t respond. I didn’t raise a fight, cause any drama, nothing. I just went into silence. And looking back now, I think that was very telling. Because even when I finally gathered the courage to say what was bothering me, the moment her response made me feel like I had done something wrong, I immediately shut down. So I eventually told my other housemates about what had happened between me and my friend, and truly, they were shocked. They decided that we were all going to talk to her about it. So after a few days, we called her to their room since her babe was in our room as usual. And we raised the issue. She got angry and said that I came to speak to others about her business instead of speaking to her directly. Then she left. Well, we all acted like nothing happened the next day and continued life as usual. Because somehow, that was what we did. Things would happen, people would get angry, nobody would really talk about it again, and life would just continue. We were having our GST exams the next day, which was horrific and disorganized. You know the way public universities can be. 😭 So we were all stressed and came back home late. We all came back home only to notice that my roommate was not yet back and everywhere was getting dark. So I called her. And she said she wasn’t coming back home that night. Well, eventually, she didn’t come back home for one whole week. It turns out she went to stay with her boyfriend in his house. She came back one week later… And I noticed something really weird. 👀

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