Often times people find themselves in a valley of decision, caught between the devil and the blue sea when it comes to friendship.

You have a friend who is vocal about their support for rapists, who is violent towards others and insults anybody anytime, any day.

Your friend takes people’s stuff when they’re not looking, your friend lies easily, your friend doesn’t believe in God and mocks your religion at any given opportunity. Your friend does not share most of your beliefs and moral values . . . yet your friend hasn’t done anything harmful to you. At least not yet.

You are uncomfortable with the friendship, you know you are not but somehow you can’t bring yourself to terminate that friendship.

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The Christian Bible says that evil communication corrupts good manners. You may be disciplined, a person of principles and high moral standards. All it takes for you to gradually lose that is your association with someone of questionable character.

One’s reputation is very important and this cannot be overemphasised. There is a proverb that says, “I came to this world alone, alone I will go back.”

You don’t owe anyone whose moral values are questionable, loyalty or friendship for that matter. They may have been kind to you, given you money when you needed it but this doesn’t mean that when facts are presented before you of something criminal they did, you forget your sense and go out to support them blindly in public. This only shows that your human dignity has been bought with money.

All it takes to spoil a crate of good eggs is only one bad egg. If you are a decent human, you know you can’t afford to have people of questionable character as your close friends but you worry about terminating that friendship without it being obvious.

The thing is if you don’t end a friendship you’re uncomfortable with, you’ll discover that you are gradually becoming like them; acting like them, speaking like them, shouting like them etc.

When bad behaviour is not checked, it easily rubs off on others and spreads until it becomes a norm. You cannot change a person who doesn’t see anything wrong in their bad behaviour in the first place. Someone once said that it is easier to pull a man down than to lift him up. Whoever is interested in turning a new leaf must start it himself.