When Influence Steals Identity
By Sanni Juliet Oluwadarapupo
Dear Sade,
Hello Sade, how are you doing? Each passing day feels like externality. I have missed the silent chuckles we always share at midnight, gisting about boys and the little gossips we always had about the grumpy choir coordinator who is always off key and still complains about people going off key. What a joke! I have missed mummy’s egusi soup, garnished with the best of the best Stock Fish, Pomo and Beef. Oh my gosh, I would give up my course of study just to get a plate of momma’s sumptuous egusi soup. You know I am bluffing, knowing how long it took me to be here.
Moving to campus has become an entire space for me. A whole new world you might call it. I guess our little lives at Eleyele is not enough to justify the complexities of the real world. The real world is mean. I thought what your mum and mummy shared was something that I would see, but I am wrong, damn wrong. That bond, that is sisterly love, and indeed, gold, they say is rare.
This university life is one filled with many dramas. A toxic world where only those who know how well to cling best can have a say. I mean, you are nothing if you don’t know the popular girls on campus or if your boyfriend is not driving a car or if you are not related or hanging out with the babe whose boyfriend has a car. You know what, all this just looks like ingredients of catastrophe cooking in a very large pot. A foundation that is built on sand, no authenticity, no originality nor compassion. Just a few days back a certain group of girls and another group of girls were literally fighting in the hall over a guy, a boyfriend related issue, it was so crazy that it got to the office of the hall warden. I won’t lie, it was really funny but sad. A mixed emotions. An innocent guy who knows nothing, probably enjoying himself with his guy friends, na him they wan die for. But nothing pierced my soul so deep than what has happened to Dupe.
Remember Dupe, the girl I told you about? I don’t know who Dupe is anymore. She is an entirely different person, a complete human being. I can’t go near her, or will I say, I don’t measure up to her standards. She has joined the community of what they now call “big girls,” obviously I don’t measure up to her rank again. I don’t know if it has to do with my dressing, the fact that I still wear okirika (second hand clothes) or that I still make the traditional kiko hairdo and not the long curly weaves people make. It is really just perplexing how someone I consider so dear to me just change within such a short period of time. But what can I say, I started smelling the rat when she began hanging out with Tade.
Tade is their definition of what any happening babes would want to be friends with or is their perfect figure of what a guy would want as his babe. Thick, robust, dark skinned, smells nice and skin, so smooth. Looking at the situation right now, I would say Dupe wants to look exactly like Tade, act like Tade, eat like Tade, Talk like Tade and if possible breathe the same air she does. I am slowly losing her and can’t do anything. This Dupe, I know nothing of and I don’t think she knows me either.
Influence is so strong especially among the female gender. It is a murderer yet doesn’t carry out his mission with any physical weapons. Gosh, I really want to save her from the shackles of those who feel they are superior and no one else matches up to them. I see Dupe starving herself just so she could slim down to the figure 8 size, who made that rule anyways? Who made such an ideology that there is a particular size young ladies must have?
The majority of the females are living a life of lost identities, a life to fit in and not to give in. They now judge the standards of their own worth to people who they barely know, having a superficial understanding of who they are. Some ladies have become puppets and little minions following the orders of the one and only, just so their Queen is pleased. What they call friendship is nothing more than disguised slavery.
I miss her, I hope that one day she sees that she is more than enough, beautiful enough, intelligent enough, social enough to see who she really is. I hope that she comes to the realization that her body is enough and must not measure up to the standards of one who she knows nothing about or can’t tell if it's her genetics playing. I do tell her this but she doesn’t just see light. I see the light, and would continue praying for her. Please help me pray for her. I want Dupe back and I hope it will not be far gone before she realises that she is living the life of another.
Yours sincerely,
Ayo.
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