Clara and Michael: We have always met each other halfway #LovedbyObiex

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For Valentine's Day, we are focusing on the love found in friendships and how it keeps us together. We spoke to Clara and Michael about how they've grown up without growing apart after nearly a decade of friendship.

How did the two of you meet?

Michael: We went to the same secondary school.

Clara: I didn’t know Maths, and he didn’t know English. We were the perfect pair.

Michael: She helped me write essays, and I helped her with maths.

The perfect pair, indeed. How long have you been best friends?

Clara: 7 Years.

Michael: It could be 8 even, but I’ll say 7.

What was the moment you knew you had become best friends?

Michael: Towards the end of SS3, around 3rd or 2nd term, we were all writing what we thought about the other person in each other's notebooks. We had put together a book of our best favourite moments, and it just clicked for me then that we had become actual best friends.

Clara, what about you? What was the “this is my best friend” moment for you?

Clara: I think it was the fact that I was taking a lot of nonsense on his behalf.

Ah? Explain?

Clara: A lot of babes liked him, and because of how close we were, they used to insult me oh. I took it, no wahala. Apart from that, I think the moment it hit that we were best friends was after the Cambridge exams. Our results came out, and he was the first person I wanted to show, tell, and talk to.

How has your friendship evolved from when you first met and now?

Clara: We’ve grown up, but we haven’t grown apart. We’ve seen a lot of shege together - separate shege and combined shege. But we just kept finding and being there for each other through everything.

What’s the longest period you’ve gone without communicating with each other?

Michael: When I was transitioning from college in Nigeria to university in Canada, we sort of lost touch. I was 17 and trying to figure out a new life in a new city. We went for six or seven months without actually speaking. It was horrible. Then Clara messages me one day and calls me out on my behaviour and tells me she missed me. I knew I had to fix up immediately.

Clara: I had to call him out, please. I’d had enough. He made me join Snapchat and then just stopped replying to my snaps—a crazy person.

Michael: Lol. The lesson we learnt from that whole situation is that we could get through anything together, and two heads are better than one.

Clara: Too real.

Both of you have been friends before you became adults, so do you think the friendships you formed during your childhood/teenage years are more valuable than the ones you have developed as an adult?

Clara: For me, I have realised that I’ve become more closed off as an adult. I don’t think I’ll ever connect with anybody the way I have with Michael. I’ve changed a lot, and he’s been here through all the changes. He’s seen parts of me that I will take to my grave. Don’t get me wrong; I have good and great friends as an adult that I love and hold close to my heart. But to an extent, there’s a part of me they’ll never know that my childhood and teenage friends know, which gives them that extra layer of closeness.

Michael: In terms of opening up and connecting with new people, I hold the same view as Clara. Before you’re an adult, you’re more malleable and open, and that’s why the friendships formed then seem tighter than the ones you make as an adult. Also, people are possessed and finding good adult friendships can feel like fighting in a war.

I agree. Good friends can be hard to find. So how do you manage the current adult friendships you have?

Michael: For me, the key is in making memories. You meet someone, find out how they think and see if they’re on the same wavelength. Then you start deliberately making memories - like let’s go see this movie, go to a party, hit the club, attend an event. You bond and find common interests. You also set boundaries, which is very important because it’s a lot of crazy people out there. When you have a trustful friendship like the one I have with my best friend, and you think you’d find that same trust out there, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Clara: Well, I’m very big on communication in my friendships because I have abandonment issues. If I don’t speak to a friend often enough, I’ll start feeling they’ve moved on from me. TikTok also helps me maintain a lot of friendships. I have a friend of over 15 years, and we’re still friends because we often send each other TikTok videos. For my other friends, they’re in different groups. I have three friendship groups, each with a WhatsApp group chat, making it easy for me to keep up with everyone.

What’s something you really love about each other? It can be more than one thing if you like.

Michael: I really like her forehead. I love her personality. I really love her sense of adventure; it’s second to no one, and it motivates me to leave my comfort zone. She’s the kind of energy I love to have around me. She’s Dora the Explorer and Anne Hathaway all in one.

Clara: I love how non-judgemental he is. He has always been open-minded since the day we met. He’s also very dependable. If there’s any reason I trust men, it’s because of Michael. He’s very receptive of my nonsense and unhinged behaviour. I have to show up as an adult everywhere else, and knowing I can go to my best friend and be unhinged without worrying about how he sees me, is very important to me.

Rate your friendship on a scale of 1-10?

Clara: 13/10 because we're still great despite everything we’ve been through and continue to be through.

Michael: I’ll give it a 19. The only reason it’s not 20 is because of the distance. Clara decided to go to the UK instead of coming here to Canada, but we’ll fix that soon.