Shooting the messenger
A wise woman once said nothing. She may have witnessed something shocking with her very eyes, or she may even have heard some damning information that could have serious implications, but we may never know for sure because she kept it to herself.
But many times we are not as wise as that woman. Whether out of concern for a friend or loved one who we feel may benefit from the news we have, dislike for the offender, or a complete inability to see people’s business and leave it alone, we blow the whistle.
And as we know, sometimes messengers get medals of gallantry for their service, but other times they get shot for being the bearers of bad news. These readers learned the hard way to ‘see and blind, hear and deaf’ and share why they will never be the bearers of bad news again.
Nadine, 30, real estate agent:
I once told my best friend that I felt like her boyfriend was flirting with me, and I wasn’t comfortable with it, and well, we are not friends anymore. She laughed it off for a long while, and then when he made a serious pass at me one day and I told her, she went back to him with it. He told her that I was the one throwing myself at him, and lied that I groped him. She took his word over mine and cut me off.
Neil, 38, driver:
I was driving past ‘Back Road’ to go home one evening and I swear to God I saw my friend’s new girlfriend around there. He said she was from Portmore, but he never said she sells there. I didn’t want to be no informer, but as a good friend I eventually told him after we had a few drinks. The man got mad and was ready to fight me, and I ended up apologising and saying it must have been the wrong person. From that, every time I drove on that road I looked for her, but never saw her again.
Shadae, 28, customer service agent:
When I was in university, one of my friends kind of got distracted. She kind of stopped going to classes and started partying a lot and doing drugs and hanging out with a lot of guys and stuff. I tried talking to her about it, but she said she was fine. I thought the right thing to do was tell her family, so I messaged her mom on Facebook about it. Next thing I knew, my friend was posting screenshots from the convo with her mother all over social media, along with the good grades that she got that semester, saying I was a ‘badmind friend’. I tried to apologise but she refused to talk to me since then, so I just left her alone.
Krishna, 27, content creator:
I once told my mother that her boyfriend (my stepdad at the time) was a creep, but she didn’t believe me. She chalked it up as me not wanting to see her with anybody else except my father, and said some very unkind things to me at the time. I was 17. It turned out that not only was he a creep, but he was also married to another woman with three children that my mother did not know about.
Keriece, 34, brand ambassador:
I stopped telling people when I see or hear things, to be honest, because most of the time they already see the signs but they don’t want to believe for themselves, so telling them will just cause them to hate you. I told my friend over and over that I didn’t like her boyfriend, but she still chose to stay and eventually got married to him. She couldn’t see it for herself until he started hitting her, and she was stuck with his child.
