In friendship, and in love

We are often happier

Through our ignorance

Than our knowledge.

— Shakespeare

When it comes to love, are we really happier in ignorance or with knowledge, as that quote above alludes to? In other words, is ignorance really bliss, that what you don’t know won’t hurt you, do you want to know everything?

Be careful though, for what you go snooping around for may not be what you want to find. Be very careful what you look for, as you may very well find it and not be pleased by what you discover.

This is even more relevant nowadays in the age of the cellphone and stored messages, for many people have a penchant for searching their partner’s phone and reading their messages. I think that is the most disgusting and deplorable thing that someone can do, as it not only goes beyond an invasion of privacy but is an egregious betrayal of trust. It’s akin to sniffing your partner’s underwear after they came home and fell asleep.

Nevertheless, many people see nothing wrong with it and continue the practice. This has led to many confrontations, destruction of relationships, physical violence and even death.

Would those people have been happier in their ignorance than with the knowledge that they gleaned from the cellphone messages?

“Why yu beat her, boss?”

“Because of what I saw in her phone.”

It’s bad enough when your partner is involved in an illicit affair, but it’s even worse when your partner’s friend is not only privy to the cheating, but also aids and abets it, making them accessory after the fact, as the police and courthouse say.

So, to be complicit or not, that is the question that we’ll answer right after these responses to what I had to say about ‘Contradictory expectations’.

Dear Tony,

One should take time to know each other before engaging in a relationship. It’s about having open communication, honesty and unity of purpose. If otherwise, then it’s a crappy relationship doomed to failure. Yes, the relationship may be challenging at times, but should never be contradictory, or there will be countless broken dreams. Remember that a house divided amongst itself cannot stand.

O Turner

Teerob,

What they say is true, high expectations are the root cause of bitter disappointment. Don’t build up your hopes too much in any person, or you’ll be let down and deflated when those hopes evaporate. Expect very little, don’t put them on a pedestal, accept them as human beings with faults and feet of clay. Expect very little and you won’t be disappointed.

Trevor

Complicity: ‘Involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong, association or participation in a wilful act.’ So if someone steals some mangoes and takes them to your house and you eat some, then you are complicit to the crime, or as I pointed out, you’re an accessory after the fact.

That, however, is a legal issue. When it comes to a moral issue though, are you complicit if you turn a blind eye to someone’s questionable morality or complete lack of it? After all, there is a difference between morality and legality.

For example, if you know that your best friend is cheating on his wife, are you complicit to the affair if you keep your mouth shut and not tell her? Does that make you an accessory after the fact? As we love to say here in Jamaica, “See and blind, hear and deaf.”

In other words, see but don’t see anything, and hear but don’t hear, if you catch my drift. The informer fi dead culture is also embedded in relationships. But again, does that make you complicit to breaking the moral rule of mankind regarding marriage? Are you as guilty as the man who’s breaking the sacred vows? Are you complicit to adultery?

Which then begs the question: if the situation was reversed and it was your best friend’s wife who was having an affair behind his back, would you tell him, or keep your big mouth shut. Would that make you complicit to her affair?

What if he discovers the affair and asks you if you knew about it, what would you say? “Yes, I knew about it, but I didn’t have the heart to tell you.” At that point he would accuse you of not being a true friend. Also, the husband may even view the friend as an accessory after the fact and complicit to the affair.

“Imagine, look how long yu know seh she giving me bun and yu wouldn’t tell me, you are no fren a mine.”

Of course, that same husband would expect that friend to keep his mouth shut regarding his own affair, but that’s the double standard of complicity that is selective in its obligation.

“No man, you can’t make her know bout me an Keisha, me and you is bredrin.”

It’s a tough call, but many believe in keeping your mouth shut, for cockroach don’t business inna fowl fight. Many times the aggrieved party might not want to hear about the cheating from you, for as the quote says, ‘We are often happier through our ignorance.’

Maybe it’s best to let them find out for themselves, for many times the messenger is cursed, berated, vilified for carrying the message, especially if the couple decides to work things out and continue with the relationship.

“That damn big mout so called friend of yours carry news and try mash we up eh baby?”

The harbinger of ill tidings is often viewed in a negative light, and that’s why in ancient times, bearers of bad news were often whipped. Hence the saying, don’t whip the messenger.

My idea of true complicity, aiding and abetting, accessory before, during and after the fact, is when that person actually has a hand in the illicit affair. It then becomes more than a moral issue.

For example, if you live alone and allow your bredrin to use your apartment as a meeting place for his rendezvous with his sweetheart, who may also be married, then you are complicit full hundred. Not only are you aiding and abetting the man to carry on his affair and use your space as a f… shop, but you’re also letting his mistress, who’s also married, commit a morally reprehensible act. What does that make you but doubly complicit?

You are just as guilty as the man, if not more so, for not discouraging him for his moral turpitude. But hear me nuh, admonishing and waxing immorality. Which man is going to tell his best friend, “No man, do not do it, I cannot let you use my apartment for your morally bankrupt deeds, go home to your wife.” Hardly likely, for as they say, man is man and men stick together.

Women will chat though and even make up stories when nutten nuh really guh suh.

“Me tell yuh seh, I saw your husband with a woman in his car.”

It turned out to be the man’s daughter, but the damage was done, as the seeds of deception were sown.

But guess what, women are tangibly complicit too and may even go further to encourage these immoral situations. I once knew this woman who actually set up her brother to sleep with her best friend who happened to be married.

She was the architect and organiser of that freak-off from way back in the day. That one knocked me for a loop, for it was many years ago and I was a bit surprised that a lady of good moral standing could actually be involved in something like that. But these things happen, and with more regularity than you may imagine. It can have deadly consequences.

I remember this very quiet, gentle, humble man who couldn’t even mash ants as they say, who drove to the house of his wife’s best friend, shot her and then drove back home to his wife and did the same to her. The reason being, his wife was having an affair and using her best friend as an alibi as well as using the friend’s house as a meeting point with her lover. Her pretext always was, “Oh. I’m meeting Paula for drinks and chat.”

Well, the husband eventually discovered the ploy and found both the wife and her best friend guilty, with the best friend also paying the price for being complicit. That complicity came to a deadly conclusion.

Some people are caught on the horns of a dilemma, for if they know about the affair but say nothing, they are often berated for their silent complicity. But if they knew about it and divulged it to the ‘victim’ they are also cursed for not telling them sooner.

“You mean to say is just now yu telling me bout her affair after over a year?”

Complicity can be irrefutable though, for if you allow the man to have his affair at your house, lend him your car to drive so he can’t be tracked, tell lies on his behalf about his whereabouts, then you are more than complicit and going to hell in a basket with the perpetrators.

Also, can you just imagine facilitating the wife of your best friend by having her carry on her affair with her lover at your house? Some things are simply unspeakable, and that sort of complicity has no equal.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Test cricket has returned to Sabina Park after a very long absence and what a glorious occasion it was too. Win, lose, or draw, it was so refreshing to see cricket at its highest level being played on those hallowed grounds again, once the Mecca of cricket in the Caribbean and indeed ranked among the best in the world. I have many fond memories of watching Test matches there in my childhood at KC, walking across to Sabina and seeing the likes of Garfield Sobers, Gordon Greenidge, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Wes Hall plying their trade there. It was the golden age of West Indies cricket, and I am glad that I could have experienced it. We were passionate about cricket then.