Sunken Ships: My Ex-Friends Never Ever Congratulated Me

Sunken Ships is a Zikoko weekly series that explores the how and why of the end of all relationships — familial, romantic or just good old friendships.

When Wunmi* (25) started university at 15, a spontaneous act of kindness from Tola* sparked a friendship that felt like home, and she joined her friend group. But over time, jealousy, backhanded compliments, and one terrifying fetish scare began to unravel everything. 

Years later, living under the same roof again, Wunmi fully saw Tola for who she was, and realised that some friendships needed to end for her to be happy.

Tell me how your friendship started

I got into university really young – at only 15. I was initially staying with a friend from home, but I didn’t like it there. She was one of those people who seemed very reserved at home but was actually wild at school. The few weeks I spent at her place trying to sort my clearance opened me up to disturbing situations and men who wanted to take advantage of me. Frustrated by the weird people she kept bringing back to her flat, I asked a new friend, Tola*, who I had met during our clearance, to let me spend the night at her place.

We got along so well that I ended up staying at her place for much longer, and at the end of the semester, Tola and I officially moved in together and became roommates. Because she was a few years older, I inherited her friend group too, so I became good friends with Tola, and her friends Tomi* and Sope*.

What was your friendship with them like?

Looking back, it was full of weird dynamics. Because I was two or three years younger than the rest of our friend group, some things were just off. There were backhanded compliments and shady jokes. I thought we were just having fun at the time so I didn’t read too much into it, but every time I reminisce, it shocks me that we stayed friends for so long.

Can you share an example?

In my first semester, I didn’t achieve good results. I got a 3.2/5.0, and I had the lowest gpa in our friend group. I was so used to being effortlessly excellent at academics in secondary school that I wasn’t ready for the different approach required for university. When my friends found out, they started making jokes about it, even though they knew I was sensitive about it.

They would say things like, “The person with the lowest cgpa should close the door’’ or “The person with the lowest gpa should turn off the lights.” The jokes were relentless.

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Did you tell them how their mean jokes made you feel?

At first, I did, but when they didn’t stop, I turned it into motivational fuel and poured myself into my studies. By the end of the next semester, I had a 3.7/5.0 GPA, and the jokes stopped naturally. What I didn’t notice at the time was that none of them commended my efforts or encouraged me when they found out my new score.

That’s wild.

I have several other examples. One big one was when I was in 100L, I was obsessed with debate competitions, so I joined the school’s debate club. I talked to the group about us joining it for almost a year, but they didn’t seem enthusiastic, so in 200L, I went ahead to join the club. The application process was gruelling, but I got in. After a while, when they saw me going around and doing the work, Tola and Tomi, under the guise of attending meetings and team hangouts with me, formed a friendship with the president of the debate club and got in without passing through any of the application processes.

How did this make you feel?

I was happy to be sharing my interests with my friends. I just hated that they didn’t follow due process, and they waited till they saw I was having a good time without them before joining. It made me feel some type of way, but I overlooked it again. 

Did working in the debate club together help the quality of your friendship with them?

Not at all. Because I had joined before them and put in a lot more work, I was promoted to a major leadership position. This meant I had the power to assign tasks to everyone on the team, including my friends. I avoided assigning tasks to Tola, or my other friends because I didn’t want to make it weird. However, one day I assigned a minor task to Tomi, and she went to gossip about it to my roommate back at the hostel. She said I wasn’t good enough for the club and I didn’t deserve the leadership position enough to be delegating tasks to her. It was the first incident that made me think our friendship may not be as strong as I initially thought.

Were there any other red flags that jumped out at you?

Yeah, they didn’t respect my privacy at all. One time, we were chilling together, and Sope mentioned that she had gotten into our phones and found out how much we had saved in our individual savings apps. These girls didn’t have the password to my phone, so I was disturbed that they found a way to get that information. At that moment, I made up my mind that my friendship with a majority of the friend group wasn’t going to grow much beyond university, but I had high hopes for my friendship with Tola. 

Did they ever try to talk with you about how they felt?

Not once. I didn’t even notice how odd our friendship was until people I wasn’t close to at all went out of their way to congratulate me on my achievements and good results. At this point, I was flourishing and getting into tough competitions across the country but my friends never congratulated me. Instead Tola would constantly tell me I reminded her of her younger brother back at home. Things shifted a lot in my final year, though.

Tell me about that.

My family and I are religious. Before I resumed school, a few of the pastors my family is close to shared visions with me, warning me to be wary of many friends, especially in my final year. I didn’t pay much attention to them because I only had my three friends in my tiny social circle. But then I started falling ill more often than before, even on exam days. I was worried, but I didn’t tie it to the visions the pastors shared with me. However, I kept having weird experiences.

How so?

So during my final year, we had to submit a certificate of clearance showing we had completed the mandatory internship that started in the third year. Tola and I did our internship in the same place because we used my dad’s connections to get a placement, so I had our certificates at my house.  Kept them in the same place, but when the time to submit came, I couldn’t find my certificate no matter where I looked. I had already started to panic and feel crazy when thankfully, I remembered I had scanned it into a cloud drive for safekeeping. That was the only way I managed to do my clearance. I got a B for my efforts, and my cgpa increased significantly. I still don’t have an explanation for how my certificate of clearance went missing.  

I thought that was the worst of it, but the craziest thing happened to me right after.

What happened?

One morning, while in school, I was the victim of a spiritual fetish attack. I had woken up suddenly and come out of my room that morning to see some blood and a weird object right at the entrance of my room. Someone who saw the arrangement told me to go home immediately. I thought it was an overreaction. I figured I must have been half asleep and imagined the whole thing, but I didn’t. I went home that day to have the worst health scare of my life. I experienced severe stomach pain, I vomited black substances, and felt like I was dying. My mum prayed for me all night, and when I woke up the next morning, I was totally fine, like nothing was wrong. 

This made me much more cautious and paranoid when I went back to school, which didn’t help the quality of our friendship.

What did your friendship look like after school was over?

In 2023, I was living in Ibadan while Tola was in Lagos. Then I got a life-changing job offer in Lagos from my dream company. I was excited to move to Lagos for work, but I had no place to stay. Tola offered to let me stay with her in her family home which I gladly accepted. However, over the course of the time I spent with her, our friendship slowly crumbled.  

How did that happen?

I used to send her reels and posts on Instagram. Just regular gist or updates and after I sent her a video of one of our mutual’s wedding, she accused me of using the accomplishments of her agemates to mock her because she hadn’t made those milestones yet.

Ah.

I was just as surprised. Another time, I gave her a birthday gift that I thought was thoughtful, and Tola told me she didn’t like it and didn’t use it at all. When my birthday came around, she mentioned again how she didn’t like the gift I got her and was only buying me a gift out of obligation. Her statement made me so uncomfortable that I told her she didn’t have to get me anything but she didn’t listen.

I finally saved up enough rent for my apartment and moved out. But things between Tola and I  finally reached it’s peak when she made an impromptu visit me to my apartment to spend a few days.

What happened then?

For context, because of past experiences with sexual harrassment, I don’t like being touched and I love being alone in my private space. I used to worry about it being a big issue but my sister and other people close to me have been very accommodating and have no issues letting me have some space when I need it. 

By 2024, I was much deeper in my faith, and I liked to observe some quiet time with God each day. Because they are my most private thoughts and moments, I preferred to do them alone. When Tola came to visit, I begged her to please leave the room for an hour while I did my devotion. It wasn’t something I wanted to postpone, but she treated it as if I had asked her to get out of my house. She started giving me the silent treatment, and I felt bad. I know asking for privacy in a shared space can be awkward, but I thought she’d understand as we’d lived together before and we had the same principles around our devotional time.

How did you handle that?

I made a tweet on my private account about how even if you really love someone, sometimes you may need space from them. I thought I was weird for craving some alone time even if someone was hanging out with me. A friend and another acquaintance sent this tweet to Tola, and she picked a fight with me. Even though I tried to explain that the tweet was me just musing about my personal boundaries and how best to navigate them, Tola saw it as an attack on her and left. I got fed up.

What did you do next?

I blocked her and the rest of the friend group on all social media platforms. The constant fighting, deprecating jokes, malice and tip toe-ing on eggshells had taken a toll on me.

How did you feel after you made this decision?

I thought I would feel bad but what I actually felt was relief. It was like a load had been lifted off my shoulders and I could finally breathe. That’s how I knew that I made the right decision by cutting them off.

Has this experience with your ex-friends affected the way you navigate friendships?

Yes. It’s still fresh in my mind, so I’m still wary of forming new relationships, and I’ve noticed I’m a bit paranoid about people’s true intentions when they try to get close to me. I know that I’m going to put myself out there and form new bonds, but right now, I’m focused on my healing.

Would you be open to reconciliation if they reached out to you?

Not at all. May affliction not rise again. I think that friendship has run its course entirely. I don’t want to deal with people who want me to celebrate their wins but have no interest in celebrating mine.

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