How easy is it to accept gifts from people? Among the 48 laws of power, one of them says to despise the free lunch, and maybe for a good reason. Angelica learnt this the hard way.
It started slowly and casually when her classmate asked her to go for breakfast with him. When it came to paying, she was quick to suggest that they split the bill. But then this guy insisted that he wanted to pay, and she agreed. When lunchtime came, again he asked her if he wanted to go with him. Since they were both new on the campus and hadn’t quite made friends, she agreed to go with him.
At the end of the day, Angelica thought about it, and she realised she actually liked his company. He was charming, funny, and a great conversationalist. She didn’t think their relationship was anything more than than just friendship. This was strange for a person like her, who started planning a future in her head with just about every guy she met. But this was an exception to the rule.
For the next days, he was always asking her to accompany him for lunch. They went to different restaurants every day. He asked her to pick anything that she wanted and he always paid for it. She liked to hang out with him more than she liked the free food. He was good company, and she thought to herself that this would be a long term friendship. He would try to flirt with her, and she jokingly flirted back without thinking too much into it. She really thought that he was joking.
He asked her to spend time with him outside of school. They drove around the city, ordered food, and listened to music. At the end of the day, he dropped her back at home. He bought her a bottle of gin, and she was grateful.
For the next couple of days, they would spend all their time together. From the outside, it appeared that things were going great. However, Angelica was faced with a great dilemma. You see, this guy insisted that she visits him in his house even after she openly said that she was uncomfortable doing so. To her, visiting him in his house meant one thing.
The fact she refused to visit him made him turn to silent treatment completely. They passed each other as though they had never met before. She was completely fine with that, knowing that she had not done anything wrong and that she had the best intentions. What she missed was his company and his friendship, because she really thought they were good friends. She just didn’t see him as anything more than that.
Just as she was starting to move on from the situation, the guy walked up to her one afternoon in class. It was like he had sensed that she was recovering from the entire thing, and then he decided to come back. He asked her to meet him later on in the evening, and she accepted. They went for a drive, and again he insisted that she sleeps at his house. Angelica blatantly refused, and again he was angry. When she mentioned that she didn’t have any clothes he said that it wouldn’t be a problem and that he would buy her clothes for the following day.
Angelica was tired of having the same argument over and over again. She called for an Uber to take her back home, and as she was on her way she received an M-Pesa message from the guy sending her money for her Uber. She knew that the cycle would soon begin. It wasn’t until then that she realised that he was trying to trap her with all the money he was spending on her. The worst thing is that she knew that the very next Monday, they would be back to square one.
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