Right from when I was a young girl, I have known when to cut ties with someone especially when they are trying to be of a bad influence to me. It is why I try not to make friends easily coupled with the fact that I am an introvert who doesn't enjoy many companies around me. Once we are friends and I notice that you aren't doing me any good, I take my step little by little until I have withdrawn completely. It doesn't mean we won't be greeting each other but that would be from afar.

While growing up and as a young girl many years ago, the incident that taught me the lesson to watch out for the kind of people I allow in my life was about two women who lived together in the same compound. Both had husbands; while the first one was a no-nonsense woman who didn't give regard to her husband, the other was calm and would always obey whatever her husband said and they had fights all the time.

The day this second woman went to complain about her husband to the first woman, she advised that the next time they are fighting, she should drag his private part and not look soft again. Lol oh my! When I heard that, I couldn't believe such. Of course, she did as was told. Her unexpected changes to her husband through the advice of the other woman pushed the man to go out angrily one day and was hit by a trailer where he died immediately.

After that, both women were seen not talking to each other till we relocated from the house. You can imagine!

While in the university, something similar happened to me too which made me cut ties with this lady because I saw she wasn't the kind of person I wanted around me. We had a coursemate who was our colleague in the same department, living with us in the building and because this guy had money and connections with lecturers, she turned herself into a maid who would go on errands like washing his plates, clothes, sweeping his room and cooking for him. She belittled herself in his presence and shockingly too, she was older than the said guy but had turned herself into a maid just because of the little change she gets from him, calling him her school father.

Imagine someone advising me to always sort lecturers out instead of wasting my time reading for tests or exams or times she would tell me to talk to her supposed "school father" for help of which I become like a maid too. The day I heard that, I became careful with my attachment to her.

We were both staying together in the same room and when I saw her behaviour change and one who had lowered herself without shame, I requested that we live separately and we did, though we still lived in the same compound. She became someone who would sleep every night at the guy's place and had become an object of disgrace to every tenant in the area. She continued sorting herself with lecturers through the guy and when we graduated, her results were very poor compared to mine.

The shocking part was how the guy got higher grades than her and it made us wonder what could happen and how he couldn't help this lady since they were close.

I was glad I cut ties with her otherwise, she would have influenced me negatively making me not focus on my studies and have lower grades too. Aside from that, I would also be ridiculed by everyone in the compound and street because the influence she would have had on me would make me not take my studies seriously, thereby attending late-night parties, sleeping with lecturers to get marks etc.

I wouldn't want to have anything to do with such a person except they turn a new leaf and are committed to being of good behaviour.

_{All images are mine}