When it comes to the issue of loans, all I can say is I have no experience in that field because I have never taken a loan in my life, not because I don't believe in the usefulness of loans but because I haven't had any need to borrow a huge amount of money that would be paid back with interest.
I have heard different stories especially bad stories that only focus on the danger of taking loans from private institutions mostly and how they treat those that do not pay up when due by taking away their businesses and sources of livelihood, leaving them worse than they were even before taking that loan.
Because of such stories, I am very skeptical when it comes to taking loans and so far I have had no need for it, all the better for me.
Though I haven't taken any form of loan before but I have been in the position where I had to loan out some money to someone in need and how I was met with a different individual when it was time to pay back.
After I graduated from high school, I still kept in touch with some of my classmates even after we all got to the different tertiary institutions of our choice, we still kept in touch with each other via different social media platforms, calls, texts and the likes and everything was good.
There was this particular girl that I was pretty close to because we shared similar experiences in our different universities and it was always fun to talk about the stress that school was putting us through.
One day while we were texting, she suddenly asked me for an urgent amount of money. She said that she was in dire need of money and that she couldn't ask her parents because all she would get was reprimands for supposedly squandering her money. She sent me a very long voice message pleading with me to help her with a certain amount of money which she promised to return by the end of that month.
Immediately, my heart went out to her because I know what it was like to have an urgent need for money and have no one to come to your rescue so I decided to help her out. Immediately, I sent her the amount and once again she promised to return the money by the end of the month which I agreed to because I knew I needed the money back.
After that conversations between us were the usual but only for a short while. As the end of the month approached, I noticed that she didn't text me as much as she used to before and I felt a little bit bad about it because she would be online and still leave my texts unread. I decided to let her be thinking that she probably had a lot on her plate with school activities and other activities that she probably had going on and by the end of the month, she would return my money and I would ask her what was going on.
That was my plan. To let her be until she returned and then everything would go back to the way it was.
But it was not so.
Till this day, as I write this piece, I still haven't gotten a reply to my text from her.
You might be thinking maybe it's because she's changed her number or something happened to her or something else, but it's not.
I thought the same too until I saw that she's actually quite active on the media but also actively ignoring me.
The funny thing is my last text to her wasn't even about the money I loaned her, it was a simple text inquiring about her well being which was delivered but never answered.
We don't talk anymore because I decided not to talk to her about anything, even the money. She effortlessly communicated to me who she really is and I thought about a lot of ways I would call her out so as to return my money.
I spoke to someone about it and I was told to let it go.
I really don't understand how swiftly she switched but she's not the friend that I used to know anymore. If anything, we're strangers now.
And the friendship we had was sacrificed all because of a loan. But it was a good loan because it was loaned to someone in the moment of need, whatever that need was.
Image is mine...