“There’s a lady in our area whom everybody knew as an OS. But she eventually opened a shop in the neighborhood, and I guessed she wanted to start making a decent living. Perhaps she was still doing her OS business low key….I didn’t know, and it wasn’t my business.One day, on my way home, I stopped at her shop to buy beer. I asked for canned Heineken, but she said she didn’t have it and offered me other brands. I bought one of the alternatives, but I told her Heineken was my brand and that she should try to keep it in stock if she wanted me to become a regular customer.The next day, as I was passing by, she shouted, “Customer, I get Heineken o!”I parked immediately and bought from her.Fast-forward to one evening when we had a meeting in our compound about increasing the security and waste disposal fees. As we were concluding, this same lady mistakenly walked into our compound. The moment she saw me, she shouted, “Customer, na here you dey live?”I went over to ask what she was looking for, only to discover that she had lost her way. I directed her to where she was going and turned back.Omo, the atmosphere don change! People were already whispering among themselves. The looks on their faces told me they had concluded a completely different story in their heads. Nobody said anything directly to me, but everybody looked at me somehow before they eventually left.I had to explain myself in our WhatsApp group, only for them to tell me that na guilty conscience dey make me shalaye. Imagine! A man cannot even patronize a businesswoman and help her grow her business again without the neighborhood turning it into a scandal!Sometimes, people don’t need evidence before they conclude a story about you. All they need is an opportunity to gossip”— A man recounts how a businesswoman's greeting at his compound meeting sparked gossip among neighbours after he bought beer from her shop