How a Whatsapp group chat Quarrel inspired an High School reunion

There is a quote that says

“Adversity brings people together”

..And this quote portrays the picture of how a group chat quarrel lead to a reunion of i and my high school friends.

The whole idea of get together started with three of my friends. These guys came visiting to my place one evening, i was surprised but happy to see them, we discussed for hours and it was interesting because we enjoyed every bit of it. It’s been a long time and it was amazing to have them around. One of us asked a very beautiful question, why not go out and have fun on the first day of 2019? since we only have few days left to the new year.

This question inspired different suggestions, we didn’t want to have all the fun alone and we thought it would be cool if we tell other high school friends of ours and maybe we could have a reunion(perfect)..

We discussed and decided on who will do the talking since we already had a whatsapp group.. Boom!!!, we all pointed at tobi(A high school friend), i literally don’t know why, but i guess we were all scared of savage responses(LOL). These folks left my place exactly after 7:00PM to board a bike, i strolled down along the road with them till we got to the junction in which they finally decided to holla and board a bike after ignoring quite a number of bikes.We shook hands and they all left.

Ten minutes later, i was with my phone and a new message notification appeared, immediately i navigated to whatsapp to check whats up and surprisingly it was the broadcast(bc) of what we just discussed about. I thought he was going to take his time before sending the broadcast but he did send it anyway. I sat down with my phone as though i’m about to respond to a job interviewer’s questions because i knew people will send their responses and since i’m one of the folks who suggested that, then i shouldn’t shy away from all the responses, i was feeling excited but also anxious.

Most of the responses that appeared revolved around the venue for the gathering and it’s because there isn’t a venue yet and we were all trying to suggest something, at some point i was convinced that this was going to be a flop(Not cool) and this is because only few folks were contributing and the responses wasn’t really encouraging to me(maybe i was wrong) and we all know that whatsapp inhabits so many ghost readers (folks that read chats and observe), i like this set of people anyway not everybody likes to talk and i respect that.

Fast forward to the group chat quarrel. At this point i would love you to grab a cup of coffee and relax as the next episode of this story unfolds.

The Quarrel

It all started exactly at 4:19PM when the below chat appeared

“iffa no come wetin i gain”(Nigeria pidgin)

The above chat fostered other chats that triggered the quarrel, and i was curious because the previous chats some how misinterpreted what he/she meant and i decided to rephrase the chat to be sure this is exactly what he/she meant

“..or do you mean if i come wetin i gain, am curious” (Nigeria pidgin)

…..And immediately a new message appeared and shed more light, was i wrong to be curious?, were they wrong to jump into conclusions?, that doesn’t matter anyway because it all basically helped in clarifying the whole scenario

“smh, see how you misquoted him/her”

…after seeing the above chats,i felt a little bit of regret regarding why we brought the idea of get together and i just had to stay calm and try to rectify the situation which was becoming a tensed and frenzy atmosphere filled with yabs and jabs; some were trying to defend what they think is right and some were trying to make jokes out of the situation, we all exchanged chats and argued.

After tonnes of chats filled with vigorous arguments, another message appeared which came from the main person who misquoted the chat but surprisingly he never knew what he did wrong until someone told him and i thought we could all have done better by calling him to order in his direct message and telling him to apologize but he did that anyway by saying:

“i never knew, if that’s the case am sorry, but you don’t have to be harsh when calling people to order, you all shouldn’t have come for me not tobi, you’ll just repeated what i did”

Shockingly the argument stopped and we all embraced each other, i thought this is the best thing that has ever happened so far on that group chat and thereafter i strolled back up to read the chats over again and this particular chat caught my attention:

“Of course it is(responding to someone), it only requires humility on just one party’s part to say sorry, it’s a big word isn’t it?”.

I’m sorry can be hard to say but it can restore the dignity of an hurt person and make them feel better. Without apology and forgiveness, people remain locked in the value systems that produced the conflict. It eventually ended well and contributions flooded the group and i could count at least twelve people who made known their intentions to come for the get together but amazingly over twenty people turned up and it was perfect.

Fact

The reunion wouldn’t have been possible without that quarrel, it literally inspired the idea of reunion and made it achievable. It was perfect and remarkable.

Personal Lessons

“learn to apologize and forgive ”

“Be so sure of what the next person is saying before you give a response, ignorance is real”

“Argument doesn’t have to be abusive, you can say something and make perfect sense without using abusive words”

“calling someone to order is good but do it the right way especially when the person is your friend”

Thanks for taking your time to read this story, it means a lot

…if you enjoy this story don’t forget to share and clap for it and if you don’t, i will do better next time. Thanks.