In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (either in the ascending or descending order), the third tier of the pyramid model is Belongingness and Love Needs/Desires.

Recently, a popular entertainer, Helen Paul, made an Instagram post narrating her ordeal which led to her usage of sunglasses even while taking pictures. She mentioned that some people who were oblivious of the true situation assumed she was being proud.

@itshelenpaul: “Sometime ago, I was involved in a car accident in Abuja. I suffered a concussion to my head and had to wear sunglasses for a while. When taking pictures with others, I would leave my sunglasses on and many complained that I didn’t want my face to show in pictures with them. Some even assumed I was being proud, being a star. They were totally oblivious of the true situation. Not all things are truly what they appear to be. Many are hiding a lot and showing the best side on social media. Focus on the majors and forget the minors. Thank God every day for all blessings, great and small…Four months ago…”

Her fans and supporters showered her with loads of love and sympathy in the comment section as expected. However, some comments suggested a different narrative to her story. (See screenshots below).

Being misunderstood is part of human relations but forcing one’s unsolicited and unwitnessed narrative down the throat of another’s story is uncivil.  Generally, different memes have flooded the internet displaying the level of criticism that exists in our society. One of which is a clip from an old Nigerian movie featuring a veteran actor popularly called Mr. Ibu and another actor fondly called Pawpaw (after the names of the characters they played in some movie, respectively). The former is the father and the latter, the son.

It is this desire to feel loved that sends us into a self-explanatory mode for fear of being called awful adjectives such as bad, proud, arrogant, bossy, snub, and the likes.

In this clip, Mr. Ibu is riding his bicycle with his son and their load on it. They are stopped by a passerby accusing them of being wicked to the bicycle by exerting too much weight on it. Considering this accusation, Mr. Ibu decides to relieve the bicycle of his weight, leaving that of his son and the load. He is stopped again by the criticism of a passerby who is irritated by the current scene. He calls pawpaw wicked and imagines how he (Pawpaw) could ride on a bicycle while his father is on foot. Again, Mr. Ibu conforms to the notion of this passerby and exchanges position with his son. The journey continues. Ibu rides while Pawpaw follows. This is yet another ‘abomination’. Two passersby baffle at the scene and rebuke Mr. Ibu for being a heartless father who would ride a bicycle, leaving his little son on foot. He (Mr. Ibu) decides now, to step down and pull the bicycle alongside his son (both of them now on foot). As has always been the case, he is stopped and questioned for putting up such a ridiculous act. In frustration, he abandons the bicycle. This mirrors, clearly, the level of unconstructive criticism people deal with and if not careful, lose themselves in trying to conform.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (either in the ascending or descending order), the third tier of the pyramid model is Belongingness and Love Needs/Desires.

As humans, one of our fundamental desires is the desire to feel loved irrespective of the self-defensive comments all over social media screaming otherwise. It is this desire to feel loved that sends us into a self-explanatory mode for fear of being called awful adjectives such as bad, proud, arrogant, bossy, snub, and the likes. Now, you may ask, is it a waste of time to explain oneself? The answer would be “not when necessary and with the right people”.

As we have seen and might have witnessed personally, there are people whose eyes are clouded with shades of negativity, hence all they see is coloured the same. A story of a stranded girl who was helped by a stranger would mean to them that she offered her body in return, even though the gender of the helper was not mentioned. A story of a boy whose status took a great shift, would in their eyes mean that he is involved in some sort of illegal work. These people would not hesitate to attribute the joyful announcement of the arrival of a couple’s long-awaited baby to some fetish help” or water such news down with the sarcastic question, “is it not IVF?” If along the way, the baby dies and there is a medical explanation of what went wrong, then, their verbal excitement would go “I knew it!” The opposite of every story seems to be their interest, hence it is absolutely, a waste of time trying to get the approval of such people.

Does this mean that people telling their stories do not conceal some parts? Perhaps, they do, but it is not in our place to paint their walls black just because they did not grant us access to the whole room. As long as the story they are telling does not require accountability (for instance, stories involving the welfare of a nation, a team, an organization, and so on), it is humane to refrain from asserting dark assumptions even though we do not believe them. If we further claim that it is important to reach out to people who might not have the courage to speak up, then, as a friend in need, we could do reach out privately and still respect their boundaries.

♦ Favour Chiagozie Ebubechukwu is an Editorial  Staff Writer and columnist with the WAP