The world doesn’t need another hero!

While we are kiddies in primary school we tend to form groups of best friends for protection (against the bullies in the upper grades, or maybe the math teacher who is a bitter old hag). As we grow older, and therefore life becomes a bit more complicated tan lunch break, we may still tend to protect, and even sometimes overprotect our friends.

Growing is about making mistakes and learning from the experience, or so they say. It might be true, but one can’t help but wondering why do some people love to read so much into certain textbooks. That’s where the overprotective friends come in: Unhealthy relationships, badly paid jobs, abusive bosses or intrusive parents are only a few examples of the things you’d wish to save your friend from.

But the fact is he or she was born into that family, with those parents, and he or she chose that job, with the wage and boss that came along with it. The subject of relationships is particularly interesting: since friendship is a type of relationship, how can friends tell who’s suitable for his or her friend? Maybe he or she is the one who is not suitable.

In the boy/girlfriend aspect, one can’t help all the Mr And Ms Not Right coming a friend’s way. All there is to be done is to sit and wait until our friend comes weeping on our shoulder telling us about how badly he/she is treating her/him. And then, of course, the overprotective friend will rage against that devil torturing his/her friend and will demand his/her immediate execution.

Unluckily, it doesn’t work like that at all. Because our friend will go back to his/her evil couple a thousand times before he/she realizes his or her real worth (something which the overprotective friend always knew, of course). One fact remains as an undeniable truth: Some people just don’t want to be saved. No matter how much effort we put in keeping the bullies and bitter hags away from them, our friends keep finding new ones.

Just because some of us would love a full time friend/bodyguard doesn’t mean that everyone does. Even in the worst-case scenario, some people are either brave enough or stupid enough to make huge mistakes knowing they are really messing it up. Sometimes you can’t save people from themselves. Even when you’ve seen your friend going over and over the same lesson without giving any sign of learning it.

Then, why do we do this? Because we’d really appreciate it if they did the same for us.